


Make A Mess of Me

by SugarAndBone



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Love/Hate, Mental Health Issues, Opposites Attract
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-05 04:09:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 34
Words: 80,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14035869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarAndBone/pseuds/SugarAndBone
Summary: Daryl's first impression of Sara was that she was a spoiled, stuck-up bitch. So why is it that he can't stop laying awake at night thinking about her, about her gray eyes and thick ass and shy smile? Why is it that he finds himself drawn to her, that he feels almost a primal urge to protect her at all costs, rescuing her time and again from both the living and the dead?And if it's true what Merle says--that he has a 'thing' for this mysterious little redhead--so what? They don't even belong in the same stratosphere. He belongs in the trailer park, she belongs on the catwalk......but for now, they're both together in the Greene farm house at the end of the world.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have written about 100 plus pages of this here little ditty, mainly lots of Daryl/OFC, with some minor plot, based on the season where they're at the farm kind of. Merle is alive in my story and has both hands. Herschel, Maggie, Beth, Shane, Rick, Lori, Sophia, Andrea, Glenn, Carl and Beth and Carol are there too. No one else from the farm season cuz I can't remember their names/roles and let's be real, just here for the Daryl Dixon. Plan to update pretty frequently and keep on writing! Hope ya like.

Before the world went to shit, you might have seen her on the cover of a few different magazines. Probably saw her on Chrissy Teigen’s Instagram, at a fashion show or two, and even starring in a few horror movies. She was a former child star turned anorexic party girl turned minor celebrity who sort-of beat the child star curse. 

Only sort-of. 

Because wasn’t she always alone, in and out of one disastrous relationship after another? Weren’t there the stories about the bad boyfriends and the time one flavor of the week left her with a bloody nose and a black eye? Wasn’t there her crazy mother always in the press talking trash about her, wasn’t there the time she was so bone-thin at Coachella that she made it on the cover of every tabloid? And that one mysterious stay at a “spa” a.k.a. mental hospital….

Yeah, before the world went to shit you might have known Sara Malone. You might have even copied one of her smoky-eye tutorials on YouTube. You might have watched that ski resort horror movie she was in the last Halloween, before every day became a real-life Halloween. 

But, even though everyone else at the Greene family farm knew some, most, or all of the Hollywood exploits of Sara Malone when Rick dragged her half-dead body to the house late one twilight, there was one person who didn’t know shit about her. Well, one person besides Herschel (who did admit that he might recall her from a Lifetime movie his wife once made him watch). No, there was one person who never heard of Sara Malone, didn’t recognize her signature dark red locks, didn’t know her famous freckles or her warm gray eyes and dark lashes.

That one person was Daryl Dixon. He didn’t know her, he didn’t want to know her, he wanted her as far away from him as fucking possible. 

It was just too bad that the dead had other ideas. 

********

Sara was only supposed to be in Georgia for a few days. Just shooting some outdoor running scenes for a minor part in some movie that Columbia was churning out as fast as they could for Halloween. How ironic then, that after a moderate career as a Scream Queen she now found herself starring in a very real-life horror movie. 

Except she wasn’t really starring. She barely had a speaking part, as far as most of her fellow survivors were concerned. Since the day that Rick had carried her from the woods where she had finally collapsed after days on her own, hungry, terrified and covered in her assistant’s blood, she rarely spoke. 

The Greene sisters knew her first….even before the blood and guts were all washed off, they recognized the uncannily pretty face that had made a lot of people a lot of money once upon a time. She admitted they were right, she was Sara Malone, but that’s really all she would say. Didn’t want to talk about Hollywood or her famous friends or how she ended up separated from her group and alone at the end of the world. 

Maybe if she had talked more, maybe Daryl would have hated her less. Would have seen that she was just a real person underneath, not a rich bitch who spent her life   
on red carpets and being gorgeous for a living. 

But she didn’t talk. She was a closed door. 

He hated those. His whole life had been a closed door. So, this girl? This girl with the preternaturally long eyelashes and glowing eyes and soft hands always folded as if in prayer? 

She could go fuck herself. 

*******

“Hey, Duchess!” Daryl snapped. “Wanta move your ass? Shit fucking heavy as fuck and you fucking…”

Sara missed the rest of Daryl’s fuck-laden tirade as she had flitted like a hummingbird the second she heard him coming. She was always in his damn way, or so he said.

“He shouldn’t talk to her like that,” Glenn complained to Maggie, as if Sara wasn’t even there. 

“I don’t mind,” Sara said, but her nearly-whispered words went unheard as Maggie was already carrying on about what an ass Daryl was being lately and how she had a good mind to “break his nuts.” 

Sara left the kitchen, twisting her wavy red hair into a bun nervously. She hated making people mad, hated feeling like they didn’t like her. And Daryl sure as hell didn’t like her, not one bit, she thought, with a bit more sadness than the situation ought to warrant. As she stepped outside on the porch, she saw his brother Merle carrying firewood across the yard. He gave her a bright, toothy grin and she felt herself exhale a little. 

Merle always had that impact on her. This shocked the rest of the farm residents, she knew. A woman like her should be terrified of a redneck like him, a redneck who was arguably meaner and rougher than even his little brother. 

But Sara wasn’t. Maybe it was because he was the only one who just treated her like a regular person. He joked with her like she wasn’t something delicate or precious. He called her sugartits and sex-machine and said he had the ass of an angel. He made fun of her for crying when he killed a baby deer. He ribbed her for being scared of the dark. But underneath all that teasing was a steely sort of kindness, a refreshing honesty that warmed Sara from the inside out. And one time he brought back a pile of magazines that she was in, Us Weekly and Glamour and a couple InTouches. Even Herschel got a kick out of that. 

“Never knew a famous person,” he said a little proudly, as if knowing Sara was a feather in his cap. 

If anyone noticed that Sara grimaced slightly at that, they didn’t say so. And when Sara told Merle not to bring magazines anymore, he didn’t ask why. Perhaps that’s why the pair got along so well. He didn’t ask questions and he didn’t want answers. A woman wants to run from her past, that’s not of his business, and if anything, the old redneck admired her for it. She didn’t put on airs or want special treatment. She just wanted to be invisible. 

But a woman trying to be invisible can look a lot like a woman who thinks she’s too good for everyone else, especially when said woman is the most beautiful woman Daryl has ever laid his eyes on. 

So when he came up behind her on the porch, and she nearly squeaked as she turned and went back inside the house, he hissed in annoyance.

“Stupid prissy bitch,” he muttered, ripping off his sweat-stained flannel and striding over to the tent he shared with Merle. 

The broad-shouldered biker was propped up on a log, chewing on a toothpick and looking amused at his baby brother’s reaction to the young woman. 

“W’s so funny?” Daryl demanded. “Why you always carrying on with her? You think she gon’ fuck you, old man? Dream on, bro.”

“I already got alllll the pussy I can handle with Andrea, thank you very much,” laughs Merle throatily. “Ain’t like that ‘t all.” 

“Then what?” Daryl said, sounding more ferocious than he meant to.

“You jealous there, honey?” said Merle, his voice getting more high-pitched as he started ribbing his little brother. “You ain’t like me talking to your…what do you call her…’Duchess’?”

Daryl said nothing but his blue eyes flashed angrily as he collapsed next to Merle. 

“I like her,” said Merle simply. “She’s quiet. But she’s funny. She’s smart too. Knows a lot about books.” 

Daryl gave a small shrug to that. Merle was always a reader, so it made sense he would respect that in another person. But he never knew his brother to be kind to a woman he wasn’t fucking. Usually Merle saw women as only being good for one thing. Maybe Andrea was changing him, but he doubted it. 

“’Sides, I know what it’s like…to have a reputation…To have people looking at ya like they know ya…when they don’t know shit.” 

All Merle got for this explanation was another grunt, but this one was more thoughtful, as if Daryl was considering something. 

“You’d like her too, if you got over yourself and gave her a chance,” said Merle. “Shit, boy, if I was you, I’d make my move before Shane claims her.” 

Daryl scoffed. But in truth, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought about her like that, ‘course he had, late at night during those long, empty hours without a television or a light to read by or even a cigarette. She was gorgeous, he couldn’t lie to himself about that. Skinny, sure, with bony arms and cheekbones like cut glass, but still curvy in the right places and sensual, too…always biting on her plump lower lip or stroking her dark red hair with gentle, nervous motions. Nervous, for sure, she was all the time nervous. Made him want to hold her down…pin him underneath his solid frame, put his ear on her trembling chest and listen to her stuttering heartbeat. See if it would slow down or speed up just for him. 

“Well, speak of the devil,” said Merle and Daryl’s eyes shot up under his bangs as he watched Sara mince delicately up to their tent. She was holding a laundry basket awkwardly in her thin arms. Even from where he was sitting, Daryl could see how the light wicker basket was making her muscles strain. He could also see that she was feeling shy, that her gray-blue eyes were wider than usual and that her soft lips were trembling just slightly. Because she was scared. Scared of him. 

That made him irrationally furious, though he couldn’t say why. 

“What you want, Duchess?” demanded Daryl, cringing inwardly at how vicious his tone sounded. 

Merle barked out a laugh. “Ne’er mind my brother. Ain’t got a lick of manners, but you can’t blame him for how he was raised.” 

“Just…laundry?” Sara said, her voice uncertain. 

Merle smiled. “Carol got you doing our dirty drawers?” 

This time Sara laughed. The noise almost made Daryl drop the rag that he was using to clean his gun. She didn’t hardly ever laugh, and when she did, it always sounded so at odds with her small, graceful body. It was a big, full laugh, like she was so grateful and pleased someone said something funny, like she had been waiting to laugh, dying to, but wasn’t sure the moment would come. The noise made something catch inside his belly, something pull down deep inside of his gut.   
Something so sweet about that sound, he thought before he could help himself. For a moment he felt grateful to Merle, though he was still confused why a stuck-up bitch like Sara would find his rough brother at all funny or enjoyable. 

“No,” she said, her voice more relaxed now. “She just wants me to collect it, that’s all. They don’t trust me to do laundry.” 

“Why the hell not? You a woman, ain’t ya?” teased Merle. 

“Oh, fuck off,” Sara huffed, in faux fury, a pretty little smile playing across her face. “You think women are just born knowing how to do laundry?” 

“Nah, I ain’t stupid,” said Merle, leaning back and cracking his knuckles behind his head. “They teach it to you in gym class.”

Again, Sara laughed, even bigger and richer this time, and Daryl watched in silence. Felt like he was watching a picture being colored in right before his eyes. Felt like   
he was…feeling, feeling too damn much.

“Yeah, right,” he said, speaking up suddenly, hating himself for how his voice sounded, how thick his accent was and how rough his tone. “You’re talking to a rich bitch. You had maids for all that, didn’t you, Duchess? All you had to do was lay on your back and smile for the camera, right?”

The glowing smile that appeared on Sara’s face from Merle’s teasing dropped away. Her mask came back up, the empty, polite expression she wore around the others returned. 

“Yeah, whatever,” she said quickly, vacantly, while Merle mouthed “The FUCK!?” at this brother. Daryl felt stupid and ashamed, but he kept his face hard and empty. Thank God his daddy learned him how to do that. 

“Do you want me to come back, if you want, I can come back, I didn’t mean to bother—

Merle put his hand up and stopped the deluge of shaking words that Sara was now uttering. 

“I’ll get it all,” he said, disappearing into the tent, but not before giving his brother a warning look that seemed to say ‘leave her alone.’

Daryl had his expression trained back on his gun but even so, he could sense Sara’s every movement, the way her big eyes were flitting all over the yard, anywhere but in his direction, the way she was shifting her weight anxiously from foot to foot, and he could almost hear her praying for Merle to hurry up and come out with their clothes. 

He felt that he had ruined something special for her, a small joke that made her smile, a moment of brightness in her life and it sent his self-hatred into overdrive. Even if she was a spoiled princess, he knew he was wrong for that. Don’t know why he let it get to him so much, why he let this shining, perfect thing make him feel so small and dirty. Since when did he care about women he couldn’t have, about people that was too good for him? He always knew better than to look beyond his place in life. To want things that weren’t for him. His daddy learned him that too. And it was a damn fool lesson to forget in the middle of the apocalypse. 

Merle came out with the clothes, a whole bundle in his arms, which he carefully set in the wicker basket still in Sara’s shaking arms. 

“You got all that--” Merle was asking, but he didn’t have a chance to finish. 

“Give it a me,” rumbled Daryl, up and on his feet, the basket in his arms before Sara even had time to process the motion. “Carry it for her.” 

And then, with Merle and the B-list actress watching him, Daryl Dixon strode across the Greene’s yard, a basket of dirty clothes in his arms, and blood-thick desire pooling in his belly like seaweed strangling the ocean floor.


	2. Raccoon in the Garbage

“That girl has an amazing fuckin’ ass,” muttered Shane, wiping his hands on his pant legs as he took a long pull from the warm Budweiser his partner just handed him.

The pair of them were sweltering in the Georgia heat, and it was even hotter under the truck hood where Shane had been sweating for the last hour. 

Rick sniffed a little at that. “C’mon, man, focus. I want this thing up and runnin’.”

But even Officer Friendly, as Merle mockingly called him, had to admit that something pulled tight in his jeans when Sara jogged quickly across the Greene yard in those damn shorts. She was playing some game with Sophia and Carl, a complicated game that only they seemed to understand the rules of…but if it kept her running back and forth across the yard like that, it was okay by him. 

“Shy as hell, though,” said Rick, as an afterthought. 

“I like shy girls,” said Shane, “They don’t run around ya.” 

And if the last sentence was dripping with venom and meaning, Officer Friendly was too busy looking at Sara’s tan limbs and high, rounded ass to notice. 

“Daryl has a thing for her,” said Rick, musing as he watched the archer glowering at Sara and the giggling children from beyond the trees. Daryl was sprawled out in front of the firepit, gnawing on beef jerky and bullshitting with his brother and Andrea, but even from across the yard, Rick could tell his eyes were following her and not Merle’s rambling. 

“DARYL!” at that Shane scoffed loudly, nearly dropping a wrench inside the car. “She wouldn’t give trash like that the time ‘a day. She fucking used to date that guy from…what’s his name? He was a prince or something. Like a real prince.” 

Rick guffawed. “The hell you know that? You been reading TeenBop magazine with Beth?” 

Shane’s ears flushed. “Ain’t much better to do ‘round here at night. ‘Sides, have you seen the pictures of her in those magazines? There’s one of her sprawled out on this bed—”

Rick raised his hands. “Hush now, she’s coming over here.” 

And sure enough she was, a soft nervous smile on her face. She was wearing a cropped white tee but she still managed to pull at the hem in her fingers, as if she suddenly felt naked standing in front of the cops in nothing but tiny denim shorts and a crop-top. 

Shane stood at full attention next to Rick, and Rick didn’t miss his quick ‘rearranging’ as Shane reached down to palm his crotch before turning around from the car. 

“Hi, guys,” she said, lifting a hand to shield her face from the sun. 

“Hi, honey,” said Rick, giving the actress a mega-watt Grimes smile. “What can we do for you?”

“Have you seen Carl? We…we were playing hide-and-clap…only he’s not clapping back, and I’m getting worried,” she bit her lower lip at that last admission. “Sophia already went inside to get cleaned up for dinner, but I still can’t find him.”

Rick’s gut would have twisted at that, but from his position next to the truck, he had seen where Carl was a while ago. 

“He’s inside Daryl’s tent raiding his beef jerky and comic books,” laughed Rick. “Though I don’t think it’s very sportsman-like of me to tell ya that.” 

A laugh broke out like a rainbow on Sara’s now relieved face. “Oh my gosh, that little stinker! I have been looking all over for him in this hot sun and he’s just relaxing in…Daryl’s…Daryl’s tent.”

“Go get him, and give him what for, honey,” Rick smiled, “And tell him I said to find his momma and wash up for dinner.” 

“Al-alright,” she said, turning on her heel. 

“Oh, Sara, girl?” called out Shane, speaking for the first time as he licked his dry lips. 

“Hmm?” she turned, arms going up to block the sun and pulling her top up even higher. 

“Ain’t it true you dated a prince one time?” 

Sara’s mouth opened a slight bit. Then she frowned, and nodded quickly. “Why?” 

“Just wondering,” he shrugged, laughing at Rick’s amused expression. 

Sara sighed, and slowly retreated from the cops, her feet dragging off to Daryl and Merle’s tent. The last fucking place in the whole camp she wanted to go, especially   
when Daryl was just a few yards away with his scornful eyes following her every move.

Groaning inwardly, she decided just to walk over to the firepit and get Merle to help her out. Just don’t look at Daryl, she told herself. Just don’t make eye contact. Play it cool, she said, feeling her inner self already rolling her eyes at that unlikely prospect. 

She kept her gaze on the leaf-scattered ground as she walked softly up to the firepit, Beth’s old Converse barely making a noise as she approached Merle, Andrea and Daryl in their repose. 

“Hi, guys,” she said, tugging at the denim shorts on her thighs a little. A breeze blew across the yard, lifting her hair from her over-warm forehead, and she almost sighed in relief. 

“Hi,” said Andrea, barely looking up from the guns she was cleaning. Daryl stared daggers at her and said nothing, as usual. 

Only Merle offered a wide grin and gave a hearty pat to the log next him. “Come siddown, sweet-tits. We just talkin’ about how big and impressive my cock is.”

Sara burst out laughing, as usual Merle catching her off-guard with his completely ridiculous remarks. Her tension eased a little, and she couldn’t help but wonder if the redneck did that to her on purpose, made those comments to make relax a little.

If so, why couldn’t his brother be a little kinder too? She felt him almost visibly recoil when she laughed at Merle’s joke, as if the noise of her laugh scalded him. She always did have a loud laugh, she thought blushing a little, she remembered a critic once saying it sounded like a pelican on acid. 

She drug her mind back to the present, comforting herself with the knowledge that the critic was probably walker-chow by now. 

“I-I-Merle?”

Merle smiled wide at her. “My turn for duck-duck-duck-goose?” 

“N-N-no,” she shook her head, her hair blowing around her. “I need Carl…he, he went in your tent.”

“Did I just hear Shane say that you used to date a prince?” asked Andrea suddenly, looking up at Sara with interest and wiping a trail of sweat from her brow with her   
forearm. 

Sara’s cheeks with pink under her tan. Daryl snorted in derision and stared even harder at the actress, who was now starting to feel like her white crop-top was a very bad idea. She felt exposed and ridiculous and completely out of place. As always. 

“I did but, just for a little, little bit?” she admitted, not wanting to think back to her short-lived relationship with the prince of Brunei and the summer they spent together in Ibiza. Was it really a relationship if he was fucking all her friends, girls and boys alike? 

“So you coulda been like, like a princess?” asked Andrea, stopping to take a swig of water from the bottle beside her. 

Daryl hissed through his teeth at that. “Shit, she’s already a duchess, she don’t need a be a princess. Isn’t that right, your Highness?” 

Sara felt the scorn fairly seething off the hunter. His eyes were nearly hidden under his long, dark hair, but she could see two hateful glints of ice-blue looking up at her, and his gaze went through her like a knife. 

“So why didya break up?” Andrea demanded, clearly not picking up on the fact that this conversation was making the redhead wildly uncomfortable. 

Sara shook her head quickly. “Dunno,” she fake-laughed, hoping this topic would just get dropped or Lori would call for dinner or Andrea would get a clue and shut the fuck up. 

“C’mon, give us the dirt,” continued Andrea relentlessly, “Pretend I’m Ryan Seacrest.” 

Sara tried to keep her expression neutral and light, but her chin was starting to quiver and she was hot and tired and she wanted to go home. To her real home. To her friends. Her cat. And instead she’s standing here being interrogated about a relationship from 5 years ago by a group of people who can barely hide their contempt for her. 

“Helllloooo?” teased Andrea. “Ryan Seacrest, on the air.” 

The blonde’s tone was easy, breezy but Sara saw something else in her eyes. Something not nice. Jealousy maybe. Or maybe not. 

Sara sighed and wrung her hands together. 

“He..he…cheated a lot?” she offered lamely, and she knew tears were stinging her eyes, but it wasn’t cause of Prince Obai or his infidelity, it was just the sun and the look in Andrea’s eyes and the loneliness and all of it at once. 

Daryl gave a low grunt that caught her attention, and she looked at his direction suddenly, expecting to see a smirk on his face like the one painted on Andrea’s, but instead he was watching her intensely, his eyes hooded as he chewed on his thumbnail 

“What kinda man would cheat on ya, sugar?” asked Merle, standing up and giving her shoulder a affectionate rub. 

Sara blushed and looked down at the ground. Suddenly, Daryl rose too, the movement almost making Sara step back in surprise. But she held her stance and looked at him nervously, her gray eyes flitting up and down his muscled frame. 

“Git Carl for ya,” he said simply, and then walked off without another word.

“Dinner time!” called Lori from the porch. 

Great timing, Sara thought in annoyance, and then she sighed and walked towards the farmhouse, her mind a million miles away on a beach in Ibiza. 

****

The small battery-operated clock on the nightstand told Sara it was 3:33 a.m. She had been watching its thin black hands move around the white face for three hours now. She sighed in low, deep irritation. If this was the old world, she would have taken an Ambien by now. Or maybe a Xanax or two. Or had a glass of wine. Or three.   
Not that she was the stereotypical child-star-turned-addict. She hadn’t had a problem, not by far, but everyone always had pills. Pills for everything. For every ache and twinge and need. Made life easy. Well, easier. And now, now you would be lucky to find an Advil.

Sara twisted grumpily under the thin rose-pink sheet. Her bedmate, Beth, moaned ever so slightly in response and Sara felt an instant twinge of guilt. Beds were sparse in the Greene farm, and Sara had been too weak and injured to sleep outside when she first arrived. Then, by the time she had healed, Beth was only too happy to offer to share the queen size bed in her bedroom. 

“A 24-7 sleepover with Madison from ‘Doomed Date’? It’s like a dream come true!” she had squealed, and Sara had accepted graciously. Normally, she didn’t enjoy people making a fuss over her past life, but when Beth got all doe-eyed and squeaky over some bit of Hollywood gossip or story about a designer gown, she couldn’t help but indulge her. Least she could do, really, they had saved her life and given her a home. 

Not that she was happy here, not really. She wanted to be. She tried to be. But she felt so helpless, so useless at any task they gave her. And she could feel Lori and Maggie and Andrea and the other women holding back from her, not trusting her. Watching her around their men. Looking confused by her awkward but well-meaning attempts at conversation. Raising their eyebrows when she laughed at Merle’s jokes or stared into space for too long. They were polite, painfully so. Their manners were impeccable. But underneath, Sara felt a sting of loneliness, of isolation, of being spoken about when she left the room. 

Or was she imagining it? She thought about her therapist, a beautiful blonde woman with a sunny corner office on Melrose and a book on the bestseller list. She wondered what Dr. Kasey would say about her situation, what advice she would give her. God, how she had hated those weekly visits. But she had done it because the studio made her, made her after what happened with Jack…but, no, no, no. Didn’t want to think anymore about those days. As for Dr. Kasey, she was either dead or soon to be, just like everyone else on this damn planet. 

Black thoughts swirling, Sara made her way quietly down the white-painted steps of the farmhouse and out the front door. She needed fresh air. And stars. Just a moment to look up and…

And then there was Daryl. 

SHIT! Sara nearly swore aloud. For a brief moment, she almost turned around and ran back inside, but he was already sizing her up with his sea-blue eyes squinted and a scorn strapped across his face. 

“Fuck you DOIN’, girl?” he said, exhaling a thick plume of cigarette smoke as he did so. 

How could I forget he would be on watch, Sara chided herself angrily. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The one person more than anyone that she did not want to see.   
Daryl was draped on top of the front porch railing, his bow beside him and his thick, muscled arms crossed across his chest. Even in the cold night air, they were bare, and Sara found her mouth going dry as she looked at them. Fuckin’ hell, she thought. 

“Couldn’t. Sleep,” she breathed out, realizing too late that the silence was now going on for much too long. 

“So whatcha came out here for? Looking for sheep to count?” he demanded. 

Sara didn’t know if it was her weariness, her earlier dark thoughts or the fact that her nighttime walk was now ruined, but she surprised herself when she heard herself snap, “Can’t I leave the house if I want to? What am I, a prisoner?” 

Daryl hissed in irritation. “No, worse. You’re a dumb broad who can’t protect yaself, so you’d do well to say inside your castle.” 

He bit out the last word like it was poison, and Sara visibly cringed. She knew the other survivors had been angry that she was allowed to stay in the house while they had to camp outside. Knew they thought she got special treatment, that it wasn’t fair she got to sleep in a soft bed while even the little kids had to camp in the cold. 

But it wasn’t her fault the Greenes made that decision, Sara thought angrily. So, she did something unusual. She snapped back. 

“I’ll go where I please, Daryl Dixon,” she sassed him, raising up to her full 5’7 and coming up a little closer to him. The movement in his direction shocked them both, and seeing his eyes widen just a little made her feel a twinge of pride and confidence. 

So she continued, but this time in a gentle tone, a tone that revealed a good deal more hurt than she intended. “Why you gotta be so mean to me all the time, huh? What did I ever do to you?” 

He looked down at her for a moment from under his bangs, then ran his large, dirt-stained hands over his face and let out a low grunt. 

“Girl, you ain’t done nothing,” he said lowly. 

“Then why—” 

“Get in the house, duchess,” he interrupted, getting up from the railing with a thunk. “Too damn cold and you’re distracting me from watch.” 

Sara looked down at her outfit. She was wearing just a thin white camisole and a pair of Beth’s tiny cheerleading shorts. She was horrified to see that her nipples were hard and clearly visible, and she instantly tried to move her long hair over her chest to cover them. Her face was flushed to a high pink, and she opened her mouth to say one last thing, but God help her if she could think of what that should be. 

And there was Daryl, standing by the front door expectantly, waiting for her to get back inside while she stood there half-naked, with hard nipples and her ass hanging out. Shit, shit, shit, shit, she swore, balling her hands into fists and looking down at the ground as she walked past him. She wanted to cry. She wanted to punch him. She wanted to…but, no. She just quietly padded up towards the door, feeling the heat pooling off his large body as she passed by him, wondering at how he could generate so much heat even in the cold night air. 

“Herschel said your ribs ain’t healed yet,” Daryl said suddenly, stopping Sara in her tracks so that she was looking right up at him, just inches away from him. Close enough to smell the cigarette smoke on his clothes and the woodsy, musky smell that always seemed to follow him. 

“Hmm?” she asked, not understanding the statement but also not feeling capable of understanding much at the present moment. Gosh, maybe she was more tired than she thought. She knew she was staring at him, leaning into him nearly, as if she was trying to leach warmth from him…warmth or something more. 

“Said it would take 6 weeks for fractured ribs to heal. You only been here at the farm for 4,” said Daryl, his voice rough and almost angry sounding, except for how quiet he suddenly was being. 

“Has it only been 4 weeks? Feels like it’s been 4 years,” she moaned in disbelief. It felt like ages ago that Rick had brought her back to the farm and Herschel had wrapped up her broken ribs.

He frowned deeply, and chewed on his bottom lip. “Sayin’… you need ta rest and take it easy. Not be running around at night like…..like…..like….like a raccoon in the garbage.” 

At that, Sara let out a loud whoop of laughter, and Daryl swiftly grabbed her by the waist and wrapped his hand around her mouth. 

“Hush, girl, gonna wake up the whole place!” 

Her gray eyes went huge and hot as she stared up at him. Her mouth opened slightly and she felt his fingers graze the insides of her curved lips. He took his hand away quickly, almost guiltily but Sara just nodded in obedience. 

“Sorry,” she whispered intensely. “S-s-sorry.” 

And with that, she turned and ran inside the house, her face pinker than ever but a smile playing on her lips. Racoon? The hell was he talking about? She laughed to herself. 

Her face was flushed with energy and a tinge of embarrassment as she slipped quietly into bed beside the lightly snoring blonde. And even as she tightly closed her eyes and pulled the blankets higher, she could feel the spot on her waist were his heavy warm hand had rested forcefully, and the earthy taste of his flesh in her mouth. 

*****

Luckily for Daryl (and the rest of the sleeping survivors), the rest of his watch was uneventful, because truth be told, his eyes might have been wide-open but they weren’t actually seeing a damn thing. Even though Sara had been inside now for a good while, hopefully asleep (and God help him if that thought, that image of her sleep-soft and limbs-akimbo in bed didn’t make him just a little hard), he swore he could still smell her on the porch—that unique mixture of vetiver and spice and woman—and that alone would have distracted him, but to top it off he had his memories of their exchange to taunt him. 

First of all, she had scared the shit out of him when she suddenly come out of nowhere with her hair all wild and her eyes dark with sadness, made him think something had happened (And again why did THAT bother him so bad?), second of all, she had stood there half-naked (Her nipples just begging for his eyes, his hands…his mouth), and then third of all, she had completely thrown him off with the first hint of sass he had ever seen from her. Usually she was all soft smiles and softer apologies, as if she was already prepared for the blow…as if she wasn’t a famous rich bitch with the world by the tail. And then he had gone and made that stupid comment about raccoons, and then…touched her, no, GRABBED her (and her eyes gone all big, but not scared, not really, and still smiling under his hand), and then he felt her small waist and her ribs and remembered how Rick had found her (Beaten, by who, they still didn’t know), and he felt sick that he may have hurt her and then sick that he would feel sick over some dumb broad who would have crossed the street to get away from him in the old world. 

And, then there was the other thing…that look of sadness when she said she couldn’t believe it had only been 4 weeks. As if she wasn’t happy here. And yeah, happiness was a luxury in this world, even more so than in the old, but still…made him a little guilty to wonder if he was part of the reason she felt low here, part of the reason she looked haunted instead of glowing like she oughta, like she did in them damn magazines his stupid brother found. 

Not that he read them. Cause he didn’t. They made his skin crawl. Those white smiles and those empty faces. Even before the dead was walking, that shit made him pissed. And now? Now it was like a mockery. He wondered if Sara felt the same way. 

Nah, rich bitch like that, all she’s thinking about is how she misses her 1000 thread count sheets and her manicures. 

Daryl lit his last cigarette and let out a ragged sigh. He pretended that he didn’t purposely use his left hand to light it, pretended that he didn’t notice it was cause he didn’t want to wipe off the warm feeling he imagined was still left behind by her lips and that hint of tongue on his right hand. No, he didn’t pay any attention to that. 

Because that? That shit would be ridiculous.


	3. Poker and Potatoes

It was just past 7 p.m. and the survivors were spread out across the first floor of the Greene home. Carol was reading “Harry Potter” aloud to the children on the floor by the fire, and Beth was painting her toenails while Maggie and Glenn spoke in low, giggling tones together in the window seat. Herschel was half-snoozing in his armchair, while Lori and Rick were drying the dishes together. It was an altogether domestic affair… if you could ignore the fact that there were dead people walking around outside and looking for flesh to gnaw on, thought Sara sardonically. 

Shane, Merle, Andrea and Daryl were in the middle of a poker game at the dining table, betting with cigarettes and Toostie Roll Pops. Merle had asked Sara to join in, but she had no idea how to play. However, Shane and Merle wouldn’t let her beg off that easy, insisting she sit at the table beside them and try to learn. She knew 

Merle was just trying to force her to be social, and that Shane seemed to be flirting with her, but she didn’t see a way out. Besides, how many times can a person re-read the same five books? So, when she saw that the one empty chair was between Merle and Daryl she couldn't help but give in, privately eager for a chance to sit and watch Daryl in close company without having to be in the spotlight.

And so she was perched beside him on one of the Greene’s hardwood dining chair, sitting with her back straight, and her gray eyes ostensibly taking in the game, but really taking in the large handsome man beside her…who, though he may have despised her, was still quickly becoming her favorite thing to look at during the apocalypse. “Let’s unpack that a little, Sara,” she could hear Dr. Kasey saying, and she couldn’t help smiling a little, not realizing that she was staring right at Daryl as she did so.

And as, if Shane picked up on her staring at someone other than him, he started ribbing Daryl a little, calling him a dumbass and accusing him of cheating and generally being insufferable.

Sara could tell Daryl wasn’t too bothered, that he had sat in enough card games with enough bastards like Shane to barely pay it any attention, but oddly enough, she felt Merle starting to tense like a pulled bow string beside her.

After Shane cussed Daryl out over yet another hand, Merle laid down his cards and cracked his large, scarred knuckles.

“Betta be careful how you talkin to my baby brotha,” he said, his voice a menacing and slightly mocking.

“Leave it, sweetie,” said Andrea, cautiously, laying down her cards. “Shane’s just a little tired. I am too. We ought a think about turning in.”

“Yeah baby,” mimicked Shane, “Better let ya momma tuck you in.”

Merle rose now, his chair legs scraping the farm floor with a dragging groan.

“Naw, ain’t bed time for this big boy yet,” he said. 

Daryl reached over Sara who was watching the whole exchange with wide eyes, and grabbed Merle by the arm.

“Let it go, bro,” he said, motioning to the patriarch sleeping in the armchair in the next room. “Can’t do this here.”

Merle shook his brother’s hand off him, and the action knocked his half-drunk beer off the table and directly into Sara’s lap. She let out a small squeak as the beer spilled all over her bare legs. 

Daryl reached down to grab the bottle, his hands rubbing between her now soaked thighs as he tried to grasp it and pull it back on the table. He had it in his hands, but the wet slick surface made it slip again, and Sara clenched her thighs around it instinctively to try to keep it from falling and shattering. It was just her bad luck that she happened to do so at the exact moment that Daryl’s large hand was directly inside her inner thighs, right by her crotch. 

The clenching action of her thighs forced his hand almost directly onto her pussy, causing him to just nearly cup her pussy into his palm, a fact which made Sara gasp in earnest. She could see Daryl’s face flush in front of her and then with a sudden movement, he straightened up and pulled his hand away, the beer now empty but intact. 

The others didn’t seem to notice, but the spilled beer did nothing to calm the mood, and Andrea practically glared at Sara as she handed her a cloth napkin. It wasn’t MY fault, Sara wanted to bitch, but instead she kept her trembling lips down as she wiped at her lap.

“Better apologize for that, old man,” said Shane, now standing and looming over the table. “Ain’t ya got no manners?” 

Blue eyes flashing, the biker crossed his arms defiantly and shrugged with a smirk. 

“That’s alright, my baby bro can lick it off her later,” laughed Merle.

Sara’s cheeks went high pink and she wished she could crumple into the floor. She knew what Merle was doing, that he was goading Shane, but did he have to make her a fool to do it? 

“Cut it out, Merle,” snapped Daryl in disgust, and Sara’s eyes flew up from the ground to the archer’s tight lips. He looked revolted at the prospect, she thought, and she suddenly had an urge to sob. Or throw something. Or pull Andrea’s hair. 

Instead, she decided to stand up, but she did so with such force and such distraction, that her bare feet slipped on the wet floor underneath her, and with a “OOP!” she found herself laying hard on the tailbone in a puddle of smelly beer. 

She held her head in her hands, feeling a horrific full-body shame at her clumsiness.

“What happened?” she heard a voice call from the kitchen, and she knew it was Rick. 

“Sara fell,” Andrea said flatly, and once again, Sara had the urge to pull her stupid blonde hair. 

However, her fall did seem to have a positive impact on the tension in the room, as Carol and the kids came rushing over, and Merle shrugged and gave Shane a “finger gun” symbol and then oozed out of the room. 

“Kay?” she heard a voice next to her ask, and she looked up to see Daryl inches from her face, holding out a hand to help her stand up. 

“Sorry,” she whispered, reaching out for his hand and letting him pull her up. Something in his eyes crackled, and then with a loud thud, he slammed his chair back under the table. 

“Stop ‘pologizing all the damn time, duchess,” he bit out, “Fuck’s there for you to be sorry for?” 

“Mama, he said fuck again,” she heard Sophia whisper to Carol. 

***

With a grunt, he strode out of the room, leaving Sara with a wet ass, a hurt ego and Shane Walsh staring wantonly at her, rubbing his hands up and down his stubbled jaw. 

Daryl found his big brother smoking a cigarette outside their tent and flipping through a copy of “The Man in the Iron Mask.” 

He knew that was a good sign, that Merle was calmly reading by a kerosene lamp and waving away skeeters, instead of ranting and raving about pigs and kicking Shane’s ass. 

But that didn’t change the fact that Daryl had a bone to pick with him. 

“Fuck you say that shit for?” he groused, settling beside his brother and pulling out a cigarette of his own. 

“Say what?” asked Merle, not looking up from his book but a smile spread across his face all the same. 

“You know what,” said Daryl, taking a deep inhale. “Bout me…bout me, licking her.” 

He couldn’t say anymore than that, cause god knows he would get hard, and it certainly didn’t help that he had actually almost touched her warm, soft cunt through her little shorts when he was reaching for that spilled beer…that he had felt her gasp and almost jump further into his touch when his hands were inside of her thighs.   
He held back a groan, not even letting himself imagine the possibility of her ever intentionally holding his hand there…intentionally gasping for his touch while he played with her little pussy.

As if hearing his thoughts, Merle just barked out a laugh. “Shit, can’t a guy fuck around?” 

Daryl had a good mind to pick a fight with Merle, a real, physical fight, just to burn off some of the hot buzzing energy in his blood, but the pair of them hadn’t raised fists to each other in years, and it felt wrong to ruin that now. 

Instead, he chewed on his thumbnail and said quietly, “Y’know, she said sorry to me for fallin’, after you left.” 

Merle hummed, only half paying attention to his brother as he flipped another page in his book. “So?” 

“She’s always doing that. Bugs me.” 

Merle said nothing, and just shrugged. His eyes looked tired and Daryl felt a flash of annoyance that when he finally felt like talking, for once in his stupid life, his normally garrulous brother was a million miles away. 

“Shouldn’t be apologizing to anyone for nothing,” he said, quieter this time, realizing Merle wasn’t listening. “She doesn’t ever do shit wrong.” 

Merle yawned widely. 

“Thought you said she was a stupid spoiled bitch,“ he said, proving he had been hearing Daryl after all. 

Daryl rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and I thought ya said you don’t fuck blondes anymore.” 

Merle guffawed. “Shit, I said that? Musta been tweaking real bad. That reminds me, I’m in the mood for some trim…”

Daryl rolled his eyes harder this time, watching Merle walk off in hunt of Andrea, and thinking confused, horny thoughts about the girl whose pussy he almost touched tonight. 

***   
Sara didn’t have another occasion to feel humiliated in front of Daryl Dixon until 4:30 p.m. the next afternoon, which she knew thanks to the cuckoo clock that Herschel’s late wife had hanging in the kitchen. It started simply enough, with Lori asking her to run down to the cellar and fetch some potatoes for a stew she was simmering. Sara had agreed readily enough, happy to be of service, even in some small way, but it hadn’t taken her long to realize that this was not going to be a fun job. 

First of all, it was already getting dark outside, as summer was well over and the days were getting shorter. Second, the cellar was completely windowless and Sara could FEEL the spiders crawling all over surface of the musty room, spiders and god knows what else. She cringed at the possibilities, her mind flashing back to the nights she spent alone in the woods before getting rescued by Rick. Her breathing got tight and slow and she felt her hands losing their grip on the kerosene lantern in her hands. 

Breathe, breathe, idiot, she tried to tell herself. But it was hard, especially with the fractured ribs she got before Rick found her, hard to keep breathing, hard to keep her vision from swimming, her legs like wet noodles under her, the walls coming in closer and she couldn’t see any damn potatoes and then she felt a web or a leg or SOMETHING on her neck and she shrieked and slapped it away and then she dropped the lantern with a heartbreaking SMASH and was plunged into darkness. 

This time she screamed in earnest, a scream that would have made her old directors proud. She turned and tried to leap towards the stairs, but in utter darkness, she only made a few steps before slamming her shin hard into something and she felt warm blood erupting like lava from her leg almost instantly. 

She heard footsteps coming towards her, and she panicked. Was it the dead? Or worse, was it—her breath was erratic now, coming so hard and fast she couldn’t hear anything else. 

She felt arms wrap around her biceps and she screamed again, kicking and twisting like a wild thing, like a branch breaking off in a storm. 

“Hush, duchess, hush, shit,” commanded a familiar southern twang, but Sara was still too scared to feel embarrassed. “Yer fine, fuck, yer fine. Ain’t—ain’t ya fine?” 

“Daryl, Daryl,” she said frantically. “It’s dark, get me out.” 

“I got ya, I got ya,” he said, and for once his voice sounded soothing rather than scornful. He pulled her close to his chest, wrapping a strong arm around her waist and guiding her towards the stairs. He had a small flashlight in his hand which gave off just enough light for them to see a few feet in front of them. 

“What ya screaming for anyways?” he asked, pulling her carefully around the broken glass of the lantern. “You fall down?” 

“I, I…spiderweb,” she said weakly. “And then, the dark.”

He made a small noise at that, and Sara didn’t know if he was laughing at her. She cringed a little, and as if he felt her body stiffen under his fingers, he gave her a reassuring squeeze that was almost tender. Her heart melted a little and she was glad he couldn’t see her flaming cheeks in the dark. 

“Merle scared a spiders too,” he said.

Sara smiled at that.

“You lie,” she said, trying to ignore that sweet, warm feeling in her lower belly that sparked when Daryl squeezed her waist. 

“Well, maybe a little,” he admitted, and Sara leaned a bit closer to his torso, letting her cheek almost rub on the t-shirt covering his chest.   
“Here’s the stairs. I’ll hold the light on ‘em till ya get up there,” he said. “You got it?” 

She nodded shakily. 

“Ill get the potatoes, you git a bandaid for that leg,” he said.

Leave it to Daryl’s keen eyes to pick up on a small trickle of blood, even in the near-dark of the cellar. 

She nodded obediently and started walking up the stairs.

“Oh, and duchess?” he called out. 

“Yeah?” she asked softly, no longer able to see him as the flashlight was trained on the stairs. 

“Don’t scream like that no more unless something’s really wrong.”

She flushed in embarrassment. “I-i-I’m sor—”

“Thought something happened to ya,” he interrupted, as if he didn’t want her apology. 

She nodded again, and walked up the stairs, bleeding and embarrassed, and more than a little bit turned on.


	4. Moms and Yahtzee

One thing you never would suspect about the apocalypse is how fucking boring it can be, especially when you have a safe(ish) place to call home. Outside of the occasional battle with walkers or the ever-present search for food and supplies, there is just a hell of a lot of time where there is nothing to do. No television. No music. No shopping. No restaurants. No movies. 

The survivors at the Greene house stayed busy with chores most of the day, but when the weather didn’t cooperate, like this summer day when storms chased around the sky for hours, there was nothing but time to fill. Some people chose to nap, like Shane, while others disappeared with knowing looks at each other, such as Lori and Rick and Maggie and Glenn. 

For her part, Carol was busy making no-bake PB cookies with Carl, while Herschel was trying to teach Sophia how to play dominoes. That left Sara, Beth, Merle, Andrea and Daryl on the porch, huddled under the farmhouse awning and watching the lightening shatter the sky as the warm rain came down in sheets. 

Sara’s feet were stretched out in Beth’s small lap, while the farmer’s daughter painted her toes a deep shade of mauve. Merle was dozing half-asleep on Andrea’s lap, only occasionally flinching when a loud bolt of thunder would abruptly shock him out of his slumber. Daryl was chain-smoking near the stairs, as far away as he could get from the rest of them without getting drenched, with his knees tugged up close to his chest. 

Munching on an apple, Andrea started to absently leaf through the pile of fashion magazines at Beth’s feet. Sara’s eyes drifted shut. The storm was strangely relaxing in its violence, and the gentle rocking of the porch swing was putting her to sleep. 

“Oh, my God!” said Andrea loudly, forcing Sara’s heavy lids open. “There’s a story in here about you, Sara!” 

Sara’s cheeks went pink. She thought she had hid the magazines she was in, at least the ones where she was on the cover, but she hadn’t gone through every stupid rag page by page. 

“Oh, that’s so cool!” squeaked Beth, beaming at Sara like she just got crowned prom queen. “What’s it say!?”

“It’s an interview with your mom, looks like,” said Andrea, “Shh. Let me read it out loud.”

“NO!” shouted Sara, and then added quickly, in a small tone, “No, I mean, please no. Please, don’t.”

“Psh, you kiddin’? What else have we got to do? Besides, it’s a little late to get shy…you’re a movie star by choice, right?” scolded Andrea. 

Sara’s face went pale as Andrea started reading, and she tried to move off the swing, but Beth quickly swatted her legs and pointed to her toes with the wet brush.   
“Don’t mess me up!” she hissed playfully. 

Oh my god, thought Sara. Why is this happening to me? She felt Daryl’s eyes on her and she knew this would just add more ammunition for him to mock her. I just have to grin and bear it, she thought. Pretend it’s okay, and it will be okay. Don’t add fuel to the fire. 

So, she tried to keep a neutral expression as Andrea read the interview aloud, but it was difficult because Jackie (as her mother liked to be called, even by her own daughter) must have really been in a mood when the reporter got a hold of her that day. 

It was a Vogue magazine from 2 years prior, and the gist of the interview was that Sara had just left her stay at the ‘spa’ (which was heavily hinted at as a mental institution which, to be fair, it was), and that Jackie thought it was too soon for the producers of “Marooned” to have her back on set. 

Andrea read, “Jackie Malone has always been a force in both New York and Hollywood and her reputation is as well-known by the industry insiders as her daughter is by movie-goers and fashionistas. In fact, many credit Sara Malone’s fame to her mother’s hard-driving will, crushing work ethic and frank criticism, criticism which she very freely gave to me as we discussed her daughter’s recent troubles. 

Jackie says, ‘Sara has always been deeply troubled, and very delicate. She’s quite sensitive, much like myself, but she surrounds herself with all the wrong people. Ever since she fired me as her manager three years ago, her career has been headed downhill fast. Even her appearance has vastly changed. She no longer has that healthy, innocent glow, and her weight has been out of control. She needs to be kept on a strict diet, and I mean that kindly. She’s a pretty girl, but that doesn’t last forever, and she needs to get serious before it’s too late.’ 

When questioned about Sara’s recent stay at Cedars-Sinai, as well as news that her ex-boyfriend Jack Debeaux was the reason for her visit, due to a physical altercation that left the starlet with a black eye, Jackie scoffed and had this to say, ‘She never should have dated that loser. Can’t say I feel too sorry for her. The only movie he was ever in was ‘Debased,’ and all of 350 people saw that straight-to-DVD disaster.’” 

Beth gasped at that and looked at Sara in shock. “How could your mama say such cruel things about you? That can’t be right, right? All those magazines are nothing but lies, my daddy says.”

Sara had been in a blank reverie while Andrea was reading, feeling herself effortlessly cast back into that old world as if flesh-eating zombies never existed, except on the set of her films. 

“Huh?” she asked, and then she gave a sardonic laugh. “No, that’s Jackie, alright.” 

“Jackie?” asked Beth.

“Yeah, she liked me to call her that,” said Sara. “Silly, right? Anyways, too bad she can’t see me now…I think I am finally 120 pounds…who knew all that time, when I was doing low-carb or no-carb or raw diets that all I really needed was a zombie apocalypse to kick my fat ass in shape?” 

Beth started giggling, and Andrea lifted up the magazine to start reading again, but suddenly Daryl’s low, gruff voice from the end of the porch shocked them. He had been silent the whole time, staring out at the storm and then back at Sara, a hateful expression on his face. 

“Blondie, you start reading that magazine again and I’m gonna come over there and torch it in your fuckin’ hands,” he said, motioning at her with his lighter ominously. 

Sara looked at him in shock while Andrea demanded, “What!? Why? This is good stuff.” 

“It’s fuckin’ shit, ya dumbass!” he hissed. “I don’t want to fuckin’ hear it.” 

“Well, who died and made YOU god, Daryl Dixon? I’ll keep reading it if I want!” And with that, Andrea went back to reading, “’Jackie Malone also revealed that her daughter has struggled with her mental health in the pas—DARYL!”

Her reading was interrupted as Daryl strode across the porch and ripped the magazine out of her hands, and then launched it across the yard into a giant, sopping puddle of mud. 

“You ass!” Andrea declared, waking up Merle who was now sitting up with a bemused expression on his face. 

“What’s happening?” he asked. “Why you shoutin’ sugar, shit. Can’t a man get some zzz’s.”

“Daryl! Your fucking brother, that’s what’s the matter!” complained Andrea. “We were all having a good time reading our magazine and he just destroyed it!” 

“No, blondie,” hissed Daryl, getting up close in her face, so close that Merle protectively whacked his hand away. “We ALL wasn’t having a good time. I wasn’t having a good time, and Duchess DEFINITELY wasn’t having a good time, but you’re too FUCKin STOO-PID like all Merle’s cooze to even realize that.” 

Sara’s heartrate increased. What was he talking about? How did he know how worked up she was? Damn, I thought I had a better poker face that that, she thought. 

“Hey, man!” laughed Merle, as Andrea stood angrily and dropped him out of her lap. “Don’t be getting me in trouble now! I was asleep, leave me out of it!” 

“You’re a redneck ASShole,” bit out Andrea, and then she stomped inside, leaving both Dixons wondering exactly which one of them she meant.   
Beth, who had been sitting primly during this outburst, finally said in an overly-bright yet serious tone, “Well. I will say this. Your toes do look real pretty.” 

And for some reason, Sara started to crack up at that, laughter coming off her in desperate, relieved waves. 

“Fuckin’ broads are nuts,” said Merle. “Gimme a smoke, Dar. Damn, Sara, you look like an angel but you laugh like a fuckin’ seabird. Pipe down, yer gonna attract the dead.” 

And that only made her laugh harder, this time Beth joining her as they collapsed on the swing together in a fit of giggles. 

Daryl handed him a smoke, looking at the girls and shaking his head, but even Merle could see that Daryl’s eyes were creased with something other than irritation. 

“The hell happened while I was sleeping, shit,” Merle groused. 

Just then Carol’s head popped out of the screendoor. “Anyone wanna play Yahtzee?” 

Sara and Beth paused mid-giggle to stare at each other, and then with another deep gasp, they set into a renewed fit of hysteria. 

“What? What did I say?” 

And it was only later that night, when Sara was in her pajamas, teeth brushed, face clean and warm blanket on her body, that she realized Daryl (Daryl, the man who despised everything about her) had saved her from being humiliated and heartbroken by Andrea, and instead gave her the biggest fit of giggles she had experienced since before the dead started walking. 

Talk about fucking funny. 

***   
Daryl groggily blinked his eyes open. It was early morning and white-gray light was filtering through the canvas of the tent he shared with Merle. His body ached—after days of storms, yesterday the rain had finally let up, and he had spent the whole day hunting. His feet were now blistered and sore, his lower back aching, and his arms so tight he didn’t think he could lift them above his head.

Despite the pain, he felt better than he had in days. Being stuck at the Greene house for nearly a week had taken its toll on him. He hated being stuck indoors as it was, but being stuck indoors with people like Shane Walsh and a bunch of God-fearing righteous people like Herschel and his family made it even worse. He felt like he was being watched and judged every second, like they saw him for the white trash he was, even though they were never anything but polite. 

And then there was Sara. Up until this spate of summer storms, he had been able to keep his interactions with her to a bare minimum, but the forced togetherness indoors meant he had a whole heap of time to be in her presence. To get better acquainted with the shades of gray in her eyes. To learn her scent like it was a second language. To become attuned with her little mannerisms and “tells,” the way she clutched her hands and pulled at her necklace chain when she was nervous, the way she always walked nearly on tiptoe and sat down every dish and fork as slowly as she could (as if she never wanted to make a single noise to draw attention to herself), the way her voice was hushed and girlish, sometimes so low he had to strain to hear.

Yeah. Today might be another day to hunt, blisters and pain be damned. He was supposed to hate this spoiled rich bitch, Daryl thought angrily. Not be checking her out and noticing her stacked ass.

But that was the problem with all this togetherness. The more time he had spent around Sara, the harder it was to hate her and write her off as a little princess. Just a few days prior, Andrea had read part of a magazine that revealed that Sara’s life wasn’t exactly the fairy tale that Daryl had always imagined, and that realization had started off a whole chain of reactions in his head. It wasn’t just what the magazine said or how her mother spoke of her or the horrifying, infuriating knowledge that some pretty-boy had put her in the hospital, but the way Sara had reacted to it all...a combination of self-deprecating humor and brave blankness, as if she was steeling herself to simply survive it through sheer force of will, with a pretty smile on her face.

And Daryl could relate to that, minus the red-carpet smile bit. He knew what it was like to fold into yourself to survive, to take a beating without uttering a cry, to accept pain as your due.

He related to it. He understood it. And he respected it. But that didn’t mean he likes it. Despite the fact that he barely knew this girl, he felt a strange sense of protectiveness over her, and he had wanted to clock Andrea for tormenting her the way she was. Because it wasn’t the magazine, Daryl noticed. It was a constant, low-grade thing, like Andrea was testing Sara to see how far she could push her and how rude she could be. Daryl had to hand it to the actress though...Sara barely reacted to her bullshit at all, as if Andrea was just background noise and she had endured much worse.

Which, of course, she had...because here was the thing. For reasons beyond his understanding, reasons he didn’t like to think too long on, Daryl had later gone and went that magazine from the mud puddle when no one else was around.

He cleaned it off as best as could, and he carried it under his arm like it was a secret prize. And then, he read the whole interview with this strange, quiet girl’s mother, not once, not twice, but ten times. He looked at the accompanying pictures of Sara for so long that they felt burned into his memory, like if she looked at him she would be able to see those images of herself flashing back at her in his eyes.

And that’s why Daryl was eager to go hunting again today, and god help any walkers he came across. He was feeling bloodthirsty, angry, weak, and ashamed...who was he to be thinking of this girl, to be thinking about her pain, to be noticing the way her eyes shone when she laughed, to be missing her smell when she left the room?

Daryl was trash and he knew it, and even though he now knew that Sara wasn’t always treated like royalty, it didn’t change the fact that they didn’t even belong in the same stratosphere. And he hated being reminded of who he was. And what he couldn’t have.

Especially when what he couldn’t have was 5’7 with wavy red hair, gray eyes, and a thick ass he wanted to grip tight with his fingers while she rode his cock.

Yep. He was going hunting today.


	5. Cats and Moonshine

The thing about Daryl was the more he found his mind filled with Sara, the more he found himself wanting to lash out. At her. At himself. At everyone. 

So, when he and Merle found a stash of moonshine in a neglected hunting cabin on their most recent hunting excursion, he didn’t think twice about getting loaded with his big brother. The moonshine was strong, and it hit them hard…both of them having been teetotalers by necessity in recent months, as alcohol was hard to come by in the apocalypse, save a few cases of skunked beer which Rick and Shane had found at a gas station weeks ago. It also didn’t help that they had been hunting all day in the hot sun, and that the only thing they had in their belly was beef jerky and stale peanut butter crackers. 

But, all that aside, he felt like himself for the first time in months, him and Merle laying on the porch of the cabin and drinking and smoking, reminiscing about the old days and occasionally stopping to get up and take a piss in the woods, barely noticing or caring if any walkers were wandering nearby. Shit, they were fucked up, thought Daryl. But it felt right. It felt normal. A trashy cabin. Bottles of liquor. The hot sun and his big brother and their lives going nowhere. Yeah, it felt right. 

When they finally made it back to the Greene farm house, it was nearly dusk, and his head was starting to ache something fierce. He felt like he was seeing double, no triple, but even so, he sensed Sara’s presence almost immediately when she walked up quietly to their tent. He was laying on his back outside, hoping that the cool night air would ease his sweating, while Merle was passed out in their tent, snoring loudly. 

“What you want, duchess?” his voice rough from a day of smoking cigarettes. 

“I-I brought…dinner?” she said, motioning down to the tray of food in her hands, something that looked like spaghetti and rolls. “When you didn’t come…in time. Saved plates.” 

As usual, she was speaking in quiet staccato, as if he scared her, made her nervous, made the words stop coming out right. That pissed him off. 

“Wow, ain’t you so thoughtful,” he said sarcastically. 

She flushed pink at that. “Do…you want me to set…” 

“Just put them down there,” said Daryl, muttering to the foot locker which was standing by the left side of their tent.

“Kay,” she said, moving quickly to obey him, making his self-hatred go into overdrive as he witnessed her taking his shit without complaint yet again.

Sara turned to start walking away, giving Daryl an eyeful of her tight ass in those damn Daisy Dukes she was always torturing him with, when she suddenly turned around and said, “Are you…are y’all drunk? It’s just…when Merle was inside looking for Andrea earlier, he seemed, drunk?” 

He lifted his arm off his face and blinked at her. “What you care? I know they drink in Hollywood.” 

Again, she flushed pink and looked down at the earth nervously. He thought she was going to walk off without another word, but instead she kept standing there, pulling on her silver necklace chain, before finally saying, “Yeah, but worst that can happen there is a DUI or some bad press.” 

He raised his eyebrows. “Huh?” 

“You shouldn’t be out there drunk. You could get killed,” she said, barely above a whisper and the syllables shaking like a squirrel as it flitted nervously from branch to branch. 

He sucked in his breath, and sat up at that, taking in her appearance from head to toe. Along with her jean shorts, she was wearing a tight white tank top and her legs and feet were bare, accentuated by Beth’s nail polish. Her long wavy hair was piled into a wild bun on top of her head, a few loose strands falling down, and a newly-golden tan brought out her freckles and the lightness of her eyes. Feeling his appraising stare, Sara nervously started playing with her necklace chain again, the movement making her tits bounce slightly, and he wondered whether she was wearing a bra. His cock twitched against his will. 

He finally spoke, “Girl, my brother and I know how to take care of our ou’selves, don’t need no advice from a little rich girl.” 

He thought he saw a spark of anger fly across her face, but if so, she didn’t give voice to it, instead saying in a meek tone, “Okay.” 

Daryl realized he was holding his breath. 

“There’s aspirin under the napkin,” Sara said, and with that, she walked away. 

*****

“Wow, I never knew you could use cashews to make a sauce like that!” said Carol in awe, as she licked her lips and smiled at Sara. “It tastes just like cheese! Sophia is gonna be so happy to finally have mac-and-cheese again!”

“One of my chefs taught me that,” said Sara, “Back when I was doing a vegan diet. Who knew it would come in handy someday!” 

Carol shook her head in awe, taking another bite of the cashew ‘cheese’ noodles. “I can’t believe you used to have a chef. Not to mention, MORE than one.” 

Sara blushed a little. She and Carol were making dinner in the kitchen, and Sara was finally feeling useful because she knew a few kitchen tricks to help make the most of their supplies. But then she had to go and say something stupid about her chefs.

“Honey, it’s okay,” said the older woman, reaching out to pat her hand. “You don’t have to be ashamed because you came from money.” 

Sara gave a half-smile to Carol. “Well, I didn’t COME from money. When we first started out, my mom could barely make ends meet. She was a single mom, and she was determined I become a star, but that stuff…agents, clothes, pageants, makeup…it costs money. She sacrificed a lot to make it happen.” 

“Aren’t moms amazin’?” sighed Carol. 

Sara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Amazing, indeed…But yea, I guess I do feel embarrassed to mention stuff like my chefs now. Especially around Daryl.”

If Carol noticed the nervousness in Sara’s voice, she didn’t mention it. “Oh, ignore him. He’s harmless. He just doesn’t know what to make of you, I think.”

“What do you mean?” asked Sara, getting up from the kitchen chair as the timer for the next batch of noodles went off.

“Oh, I don’t know, honey. It’s hard to explain. I know guys like the Dixons though. Grew up around ‘em. They’re more bark than bite, most of them,” said Carol, rubbing her arm absently. “Most of them.”

Sara felt the mood in the room change, although she couldn’t say why. “I think he hates me, like really, really hates me,” she said quietly. 

“Oh, so what if he does? The rest of us like you,” soothed Carol. “Especially Beth.” 

I don’t WANT Beth to like me, Sara wanted to snap. I want Daryl to like me. 

And why is that, she wondered. Why is it so upsetting to me that Daryl doesn’t like me? Sure, he’s fucking sexy as hell, but that’s no reason to be obsessing over him, not when the world was ending and everyone she used to know and care about was dead. 

“Honey, go outside and see if one of those layers left an egg for me, okay? I’d like to make a little cake for dessert,” said Carol, her mind already moving past the conversation. 

Sara nodded in agreement, throwing on a pair of Converse, and resisting the urge to say she knew there wouldn’t be an egg. She had already checked once that day, and she was starting to think that Carol was really failing to grasp the concept of vegan baking. 

Carol’s disinterest in flax-seed eggs aside, Sara was happy to be outside in the waning afternoon sunlight. She also had another thing on her mind: Cuddling the new kittens which the fat, worried tuxedo cat had given birth to just a week prior. 

Smiling a little at the prospect of cuddling adorable kittens, Sara fairly skipped off to the small lean-to by the hen house, where she had helped make a warm bed for the Mama cat, even donating her favorite blanket with the fleece lining. She knew that the others thought she was crazy, even a little foolish, for worrying about a cat in the middle of the end of the world, but Sara had always been a cat-fiend, and besides, every mom deserves a warm, soft place for her herself and her babies, she thought. 

But, when Sara entered the lean-to, she encountered a strange, sour smell in the air, and she knew something was wrong immediately. She heard a low growl, and then suddenly, she felt cold, soft hands on her and she screamed. Whirling her way out of the shed and back into the sunlight, she was confronted by a walker with a blood-wet mouth, a walker who had clearly just feasted on the cat and her kittens and was now coming for her. 

She stumbled and fell on her butt, then turned around to face the encroaching walker. It was gaining on her, its jaws snapping open and shut quickly, and Sara’s stomach turned violently when she saw bits of black fur still stuck in its teeth. 

Frantically, she scrabbled for purchase and tried to pull herself off the ground, but the walker was on top of her before she could, and then—blood and guts exploded all over her face and chest. 

Looking up in shock, she saw an arrow stuck through the walker’s forehead, blood spurting out of his mushy, oozing head. Breathing a sigh of relief as well as a shudder of horror, she tried to pull herself out from under the bloody mess, to no avail. 

She felt someone rip the corpse off her, and then she saw it was Daryl, Daryl who was now on his knees and roughly grabbing her by her shoulders, “You bit!? You bit? Did it bite you?” 

“No, no, no,” she said desperately, trying to wipe the blood and guts off her face with the hem of her tank-top. 

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuckin’ fuck!” Daryl snapped at her, and then handed her a bandanna from the back of his jeans pocket. But then, seemingly thinking better of it, he ripped it out of her grasp and started wiping the zombie matter off her face by himself. Sara could see that his hands were shaking and he seemed enraged. 

“I’m sorry…” she said, though she didn’t know what for what exactly. Getting in trouble again? She seemed to have a knack for that. 

“What the FUCK were you even doin’, girl?” he said, now starting to wipe the blood off her chest.

“I want-wanted to s-see—

And with that she groaned, and put her face in her hands and preventing him from cleaning her any further. 

Daryl looked at the lean-to and then back at her, and put together what happened quickly enough. Everyone knew that Sara loved that mama cat and her kittens, and there had even been some drama when Sara was taking food from her own plate to save for the cat’s dinner. 

Sara felt a rock of hopelessness deep in her belly. She wanted to cry, she wanted to sob, she wanted to get it OUT of her, but she couldn’t. She didn’t have the energy. The bravery. The kittens were dead. Eaten alive by a dead thing. And she couldn’t even cry. All she could do was hurt. 

She looked up at Daryl to see if he was still there, and she was surprised to see him just crouched there, looking at her, his expression not unkind or scornful, as she might have expected.

But still Sara said a little defensively, “I know, I know…they’re just cats.”

Daryl shrugged at that, and settled down cross-legged next to her. “Yeah, they’re just cats.” 

She cringed at hearing that thought reflected back at her. 

“But you loved them.” he said, and she looked up at him, more than a bit shocked. 

“You were good to ‘em, too,” he continued, “I know you still took your deer meat out to the lil’ mama, even after Rick told ya to stop.” 

Sara’s mouth dropped open. How the hell did he know that? But he didn’t seem angry or bothered at the fact that his deer, which he worked hard to catch for everyone, was going to a cat who he had once called a “butt-ass fleabag.”

Seeing her open mouth, he shrugged again. “’S okay,” he said. “You never took all your share, anyway.” 

With that, he stood up and brushed the grass and dirt off his jeans. 

“Don’t come out here with no more by yourself, y’hear, Duchess?” he said, the usual anger and scorn back in his voice. 

She nodded balefully.

“And go wash that shit off ya,” he said. “Pro'ly toxic or something.” 

“Daryl?” she called out. 

“Huh?” he demanded, picking up his bow.

“You saved my life…” she said, shyly. “I don’t even know to thank you.” 

But he didn’t seem to want to hear it. “Don’ matter.” 

“I think it does!” she chided. “That thing almost ate me!” 

“Ain’t what I meant,” he said, a strange expression coming over his face. “Just sayin’, anyone woulda done it. No big deal.” 

Sara wanted to keep arguing, but she could tell Daryl was feeling uncomfortable, like he didn’t like being complimented or thanked. So she dropped it, but she had to ask him one last thing. 

“Daryl? What…what if there is still one of them alive in there?” she asked motioning to the lean-to. “Maybe…he didn’t get them all?” 

Daryl’s expression looked sorrowful for a moment, like he knew better than that but he didn’t want to have to be the one to tell her.

“Duchess,” he said lowly. “Go on and get in the house. There ain’t nothing left in there for you now.” 

She felt her stomach clench in grief a little and she nodded. Those sweet kittens. And their brave, anxious little mama. How could she have been so stupid? She should have insisted Herschel let them stay in the house, or at least in the garage. 

As Sara walked by Daryl, he grabbed her bicep loosely with his fingers. “I’ll check on ‘em to be sure, girl. And…I’ll clean it up. Make it right. Okay? Don’t…don’t worry about it.” 

She paused, her heart in her throat. Standing this close to him, she could witness the pulse jumping in his throat, see the thick lashes surrounding his pale-blue eyes, feel the warmth and wildness coming off him. If she could see through his eyes, she would see herself standing with tangled, tousled hair, pink, parted lips and shining, tear-wet eyes that were radiating with gratitude even through her blood-streaked face. 

“Thank you, Daryl,” she said. 

And later that night, when she saw him in the dining room, he just gave a somber shrug and said, “It’s all taken care of, girl,” and she knew he had cleaned up the mess left by the dead, cleaned up the gore and guts so she wouldn’t have to see it.

And she had to admit that was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to her in 31 years.


	6. Another Rainstorm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title of this story came from a Lera Lynn song "I Become You." 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS7eA-0AaN0

The next time Daryl saw her, it was the following afternoon and the Georgia heat shoulda been at its worst, but their unseasonable cool spell had continued and he could smell rain coming. After sleeping long and late after his night-watch, he had a successful hunt, and he shoulda been happy…shoulda been but wasn’t. Told himself it wasn’t cause he had been thinking about her all day, all hunt, and here she is, not even thinking about him at all, not even aware of his existence, and why the hell would she be? Instead, she was sat by Shane in the grass near by the firepit, watching him take apart his gun with rapt attention while he seemed to instruct her. The sight instantly pissed him off. 

“The fuck is happening over there?” he motioned, with a quick toss of his head to his brother, who was stripping down the deer Daryl had just bagged. 

Merle didn’t look up. “Rick wants the scream queen to learn how to protect herself a bit. Shit, girl never even held a gun, except a fake one on set.”

“Lemme guess, Shane all too happy to offer to teach her?” asked Daryl, and even he could hear the envy in his scratchy tone. 

“Well, can you blame him? Lori done forgot about him, now ain’t that just look like a woman?” laughed Merle, ripping into the carcass with precision. “Plus, she’s one fine piece of ass. And a man has gotta get his dick sucked, right?” 

The image of Sara on her knees, sucking off Shane Walsh, those pale pink lips wrapped around the cop’s cock…he felt like someone had thrown ice water on him. 

“Damn, baby brotha,” hissed Merle, suddenly beside him. “Reel it in. You know girls like that don’t go for trash like us.” 

Daryl’s stomach dipped and churned. “What about Andrea?” 

“Shitttt, even the best woman slums it sometimes, ‘specially in the apocalypse,” drawled the redneck, his ice-blue eyes glinting. “But I know she’ll drop me the first chance she gets.” 

There was a toughness in his tone, a refusal to show any emotion or vulnerability that Daryl knew all too well. 

“Gon’ huntin,” he said in reply, shoving Merle a little harder than necessary as he passed by him. 

“Again?” He could hear Merle laughing behind him, could feel the satisfaction that his big brother got from getting under his skin. He might be well into his 30s, and Merle into his 40s, but it didn’t matter. Sometimes he had to made sure Daryl remembered where they came from. Who they were. Who they weren’t. 

As if Daryl could ever forget.

****

Was stupid what he had done, going out when he knew the rain was about to start. And rain it had, buckets, pure buckets and him drenched to the bone and slipping in mud like an idiot. ‘Course he fell, and bad enough to get a twisted ankle, so he had to come limping wet into the kitchen while the rest of them (and HER, of course, wearing something gauzy and pink and looking tanned from her day outside with Shane) were eating rice and deer gumbo and staring at him like he was an idiot. 

“Baby brotha, you know you aint got feathers, right?” boomed Merle from the corner of the room where he was shoveling food into his mouth like a starving man. 

“Cain’t be out in the rain like this.” 

A few people laughed awkwardly, most of the survivors still preferring to pretend that Merle could neither be seen nor heard. 

Glowering and red with embarrassment at his stupidity, Daryl only gave Merle the finger, which earned him a harsh “Harrump” from Herschel and a small giggle from Maggie. 

“Yeah, Dixon, you already scored us a major feast, come enjoy the spoils!” said Rick, smiling like an idiot with his wife’s hand wrapped round his from across the table, a cheery smile on his face as if he was hosting a dinner party instead of eating deer meat in the middle of the end of the world. 

Daryl was about to turn down his offer and just ask Herschel for some elastic bandage when he suddenly felt a light touch on his rain-soaked arm. 

“Your ankle’s hurt,” said Sara, who had somehow appeared at his side without him noticing her leave the table. 

“Ain’t nothing,” he uttered, shifting awkwardly and feeling embarrassed and angry…and noticing her cleavage and the small silver chain resting in the clavicle of her neck all at the same time. He had the sudden urge to suck her there, to wrap his lips around the hollow of her throat and just inhale her like a blunt. 

“I know where the first aid kit is, let me get it for you,” she said, her voice uncertain, plump bottom lip pulling into her row of utterly straight, white teeth, as if she was expecting him to dress her down for offering to help him. 

It was that fear, that uncertainty, that made him relent. He had made up his mind in the wet woods that he would never let Sara close to him again, that he would never spend another moment thinking about that stupid spoiled bitch, but when she was speaking soft and low to him and generally behaving like a horse about to spook, well…he couldn’t very well tell her to fuck off, could he? 

But he didn’t have to be nice, either. 

“Git it, then,” he said flatly, refusing to meet her eyes and instead glaring across the room at Merle who was clearly checking out Lori’s ass as she rose to clear the table. 

“O-o-o-kay,” she said, reaching her hand up to tug at that silver chain, as if she had felt his earlier gaze there. “I’ll bring it to your tent? So you c-can…get out your wet clothes while you wait?” 

He wasn’t listening, was just hearing her voice, so quiet he could barely hear it over the noise of the others, but mainly he was just watching those lips work nervously, those painted fingernails pulling, pulling, pulling at the chain around her neck so hard he was sure it would break. 

Then, the words sunk in and he opened his mouth to stop her, stop her from climbing up the old farm stairs to Herschel’s office, to tell her that he would just wait for the gauze here…but she was gone. 

And he was standing there, like an idiot, soaked to the bone and cheeks aflame while the eyes of all the survivors seemed to see right through him, seemed to sense his unease and his arousal, which he hoped they couldn’t because he was fucking half-hard just from talking to her for less than 60 seconds. 

Goddamn it. Fucking hell. 

“Give that a’ me,” he groused to Carl, who was walking by with a platter of bread, and then, one roll his mouth and one in his hand, he strode painfully out the front door, muttering curses all the way.


	7. Taco Bell

Sara had no idea what had come over her when she approached Daryl in the dining room. No, that’s not totally true. It had started this afternoon, this feeling in her gut, this feeling of rage and…hatred? (yes, hatred) towards Shane, towards the world, towards herself. 

It hadn’t begun that way, not at all. She had been doubtful but pleased when Rick encouraged her to learn how to hold a gun, when Shane told her she was more capable then she realized. It made her feel like maybe her life wasn't totally out of her control. Like maybe she could have some power in this new world. And more than anything, Sara wanted to feel powerful. 

And then it happened. Not long after she noticed Daryl stalking back out into the forest, even after bringing back a huge buck that Sara couldn’t believe one man could carry on his own (but then, most men didn’t have arms like steel pipes, which made her wonder else on his body felt like steel…and pipe), was when it happened. 

It started out innocently, but doesn’t it always? Shane told her to come to the R.V. to find more gun oil with him. And he kept brushing her hair out of her face, kept rubbing her arms, running his hands up and down her legs while she froze like a wild animal in headlights (and doesn’t she always? Hasn’t she always done just that, even before the dead walked?). She wanted to scream, wanted to push him off her. She felt sick, angry that she had been tricked into thinking she could have power, could have purpose…when the only purpose he had ever seen was between her legs. 

“Please, please…don’t, I don’t wa-want,” was all she had come up with, and he hummed in irritation, scratching his shaved head in confusion. 

“What’s the problem?” he asked. “Ain’t ya wanting a man to touch ya? I’m a good man, I can keep you safe. I can protect ya.” 

“But, I, I – I thought you were teaching me to protect myself,” she said, pushing herself as far back against the cupboards of the R.V. as she could. 

He had laughed outright at that, laughed so loud some of his spittle landed on her face. 

“Oh, honey, you ain’t got it in ya,” he smiled. “You ain’t no killer, ain’t a fighter. But that’s okay. You’re a lover, and that’s just perfect for me, honey. I got enough fight for the both of us.”

And something about the last sentence filled her with fear, something about the ultra-confident way he looked at her when he said it. As if he was telling her these things had already been decided. 

At that, she had been a little scared that she wasn’t going to make out of the R.V. without him first getting inside of her, even though he wasn’t touching her anymore and was even moving away from her of his own accord, a defeated look on his face. 

Just then, a thunder clap rang out and rain started coming down in sheets upon the ground, hitting the R.V. roof like bullets. 

Shane said, “It’s raining,” and Sara had the urge to slap his stupid face. Instead, she just slipped past his bulky frame, slipped almost through the rain drops themselves, until she was on the floor of Beth Greene’s bathroom, clenching and unclenching her weak fists on her wet legs. 

She hadn’t intended to come down for dinner. She was going to beg off and say she had cramps or something, she knew Beth would be kind and concerned and even bring her a little plate when the rest were finished. But, part of her, a small part of her she didn’t quite like to consider too deeply, had been wondering if Daryl had come back from his hunt. If he was soaked out there. If he was going to be out there all night. 

Sara didn’t know why it mattered. Why she cared. But she wanted to feel better. She wanted to feel something other than numb and angry and stupid. And for some reason, she thought seeing Daryl might make her feel that way. Might make her feel something …something better. 

‘Course, that made no sense, as all he ever did was yell at her and insult her, but even his anger had a way of warming her up from the inside out. Wonder what Dr. Kasey would say about THAT, she wondered. 

But, Dr. Kasey is dead. Probably. So, Sara washed herself, dried her long hair with a towel, and let the waves spiral loose around her face. She put on one of Beth’s sundresses, a pink silky thing that looked more like a nightgown than a proper dress. She wore it intentionally, as a “Fuck you” to Shane, to all her Shanes. One thing was for sure. She would never take a “lesson” from him again. Or be in the same room alone with him. Ever. Ever. Ever. 

“You look so pretty,” Beth had said in awe, “But you look mad.” 

Sara instantly put on her best camera-ready smile. “Mad? No way! I am so happy. Let’s go eat.” 

Beth bought it, and Sara thanked herself that her mother had trained her from a young age to be able to fake smile through anything. 

And then Daryl had come in, halfway through dinner, slamming the door behind him loud enough to wake the dead, if they weren’t already woken. She saw him limping without registering the rest of the conversation around her, and she surprised herself by moving towards him almost as if a strong magnet had pulled her there. She surely couldn’t remember making the decision to stand before his wet, grouchy self, as he stared down at her in confusion when she offered to find gauze for him. She told herself that it was just cause she wanted to be useful, wanted to feel like she did something valuable before the day ended, but she knew it was just an excuse to leave the dinner table, an excuse to run away from the stilted conversation and the disgusting looks Shane kept sending her away. 

And, then, there was the small but very important fact that Daryl was in pain, that he winced as he walked in, and that hurt her, ached her in some strange way. Made her feel…protective, although the idea of her being protective of a man bigger and stronger and tougher than she could ever be was laughable even to her. Especially considering the fact that the man wanted nothing to do with her, that he looked down at her in almost total silence, his blue eyes cold as stones as he studied her as if in disgust. 

But, Sara got the gauze. And the tape. And…then the rest of the first aid kit because she honestly had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for in the first place. 

She then fixed her eyes straight in front of her, walked past everyone’s questioning eyes and right out the front door. As lightening lit up the dark Georgia sky, she minced through the puddles in the front yard as quick as she could, holding in a shriek at the cold wind that beat upon her bare shoulders. 

Under the trees, the rain was better, but the wind was even sharper and she found herself gasping for breath as she called out tentatively in front of Daryl’s tent. 

He didn’t answer, and she stood there foolishly for a moment before she decided she just had to go in. She was soaked now and shaking so bad she couldn’t stop herself, and she knew she looked a fool for coming outside without even a jacket…or a pair of shoes. 

She pulled the flap back and gasped aloud when she saw him standing there shirtless, his face hidden by the dark blue t-shirt which he was pulling over his head. She gasped partially from her impolite intrusion, partially because his chest and stomach were fuckin’….gorgeous, and partially because she was now as wet and cold as a rat in a sewer. 

“GodDAMN it, duchess, don’t ya KNOCK in Hollywood?” he bitched, pulling his shirt down and straightening it over his abs. Then, he looked up and took in the sight of her before, sucking in a breath between his teeth, before grabbing and nearly picking her up off her wet feet so that she was now fully in his tent. 

“And don’t ya use umbrellas?” He looked her up and down, shaking his head in what Sara felt was fury. “Fuck is wrong with ya!? Where the FUCK are your shoes?!”

“In-in-inside,” she chattered, her stuttering this time due largely due to cold and not just nerves. 

He opened his mouth as if to demand further questions, but then clamped it shut and spun around inside the tent, nearly knocking over the kerosene lantern on top  
of an upturned milk crate. She didn’t understand what he was doing until she felt a fluffy towel being pulled around her shaking shoulders, until she felt Daryl’s breath warm and panting in her face as he angrily clutched the terrycloth in a fist in front of her. 

“Gonna catch pneumonia or something!” he hissed, and then looked down at the first aid kit still clasped in her wet hands. “And on account of my fuckin’ ankle.” 

That reminded Sara of her mission, and she moved to hand him the kit, but then she fairly leaped into his arms when another clap of thunder came down from the heavens. She looked up at him, expecting him to make an angry comment or joke about her fear, but instead she just saw something different in his eyes…something she couldn’t quite understand. 

“Y-you-you should sit down,” she breathed. “Your ankle? Is hurt?”

She heard the uncertain anxiety in her voice and it made her cheeks flush petal-pink, made her cringe that Daryl could so easily read her intimidation. She came here to help him, to prove she could be strong without Shane, and instead she was a shaking, scared mouse in a puddle of rainwater. 

But if he was going to hold all that against her, he didn’t do so just yet. Instead, he took his large hands and ran then almost gently up and down her arms, drying her off with a slow, purposeful motion, but without once meeting her eyes which were scattering all over his face for any sign of what he might be thinking. In these close quarters, she could smell the woods in his hair, the pine and smoke and rain coming off him like cologne. She wondered if he could smell her too. Wondered if he could smell how she was getting aroused, how warm her pussy was getting, just from the simplest touch of his hands through a towel on her shoulders. 

Damn. Maybe Shane is right. Maybe I do need to get laid, she thought. For a second, she was scared she said that aloud, because for one white-hot moment, Daryl suddenly locked onto her eyes, his mouth mere inches from inviting lips, as a wild, almost-mad expression flitted across his masculine face. 

But then, he just motioned for her to sit down, and her heart sank a little. She chose the bed on the left, wondering whether it was Merle’s or his. 

She got her answer when she looked down and saw a pile of well-worn nudie magazines spread across the pillow. 

She bit back a laugh as Daryl followed her eyes and then shoved them under the pillow.

“It’s okay, Daryl,” she giggled. “I have seen tits before, ya know.” 

“Those are Merle’s magazines, not MINE,” he said, his tone as offended as she had ever heard before. 

“It’s okay, Daryl,” she said again, thinking to herself that she loved feeling his name on her tongue. Then, feeling a tad mischievous and high on adrenaline from being in his tent she said, “You know, I was nude in a movie once.” 

He looked up at her so quickly she thought he was going to end up with whiplash. She laughed again, adding, “Well, my character was. The studio used a body double. I was only 16. But…it looks like me, if you ever saw it, you wouldn’t know it wasn’t me.” 

Daryl was still staring at her like she was speaking in an alien tongue, so she added another rambling remark (Why don’t I stop talking, she wondered), saying “I mean, I wish it WAS me, the woman was gorgeous, like a perfect ass and tits, total babe but ya…could be a bad thing, I guess, I always wondered if guys would watch that movie and then be disappointed when I got naked in front of them and it was just…me.” 

Daryl’s eyebrows were now so raised that they were hidden completely in his wet bangs. 

“I mean, like I did lots of semi-nude stuff like for magazines, like bikini stuff and lingerie stuff, so that was me, but it also wasn’t, you know? Like I had a whole TEAM of people working overtime to make me look good, so you gotta figure it’s a disappointment when you see that in the magazine, and then you see with me like…cellulite in real life.” 

Sara had the urge to stuff Merle’s pillow in her mouth, she had no idea why she wouldn’t quit talking and why this was the stuff she was choosing to say after 4 weeks of being nearly silent around Daryl. And his expression seemed to be equally baffled, as if he couldn’t wrap his head around a single stupid word coming out of her mouth. 

“I had a boyfriend say once, it’s like if you order something off a menu at like Taco Bell, but what you get never looks like what it looks like in the commercials,” she said, nearly tripping over words and wondering what the FUCK she just compared herself to tacos for. “Sort of…like that.” 

Daryl sat down next to her on the bed and she had to grab onto the cot so that she didn’t fall completely into his weight. 

“Sounds like your boyfriend had terrible taste,” he muttered. “I ain’t never had a problem with Taco Bell.” 

Again, Sara laughed, but he interrupted her to say something else. “Or cellulite.” 

His face looked so sweet and angry in that moment, as if she had insulted something he loved. “Do you even know what cellulite is?” she wondered, smiling a ‘Men are clueless’ smile which all women know too well. 

He shrugged in defiance. “I know it’s you saying something about you is ugly, and that’s just about the stupidest fucking thing I ever heard.”

Now it was Sara’s turn to stare at him in quiet bewilderment. “Thank you,” she said gently, and then with a self-deprecating smirk she added, “But you haven’t seen me with my clothes off yet.” 

She had meant it as a joke, a way to lighten the mood, but it had the opposite effect, the silence now thick as velvet, and the small space suddenly growing smaller as she felt his towering male presence crackling inches away from her on the cot. Oh MY god, she thought, I sound like such a fucking arrogant asshole, assuming he would WANT to see me naked…oh my god, that is not how I meant it. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

“I MEANT, like, you know,” she said. “Not yet, yet. I mean… I didn’t mean you would…Listen after the shit Shane pulled on me today, I promise I am not making moves on you, okay. Might even swear off men for the rest of the end of the world, y’know?” 

And, triple fucking quadruple fuck. FUCK. She hadn’t meant to mention Shane to anyone, hadn’t even planned to tell Beth about the attempt he had made on her, and now she had just casually dropped this bomb like she was discussing the price of tea in China. But for some reason, she felt the truth just pouring out of her when Daryl was sitting there so close to her, his arm hair close enough to rub against hers, his scent confusing all the words in her head and making it hard to talk right. 

Because she knew what she said was wrong. Really wrong. She never should have mentioned what happened in the R.V., even as a passing joke. 

She knew as soon as she said the name Shane, could feel Daryl’s body tense like a rod. As she continued talking, she could feel black, seething rage coming off him in waves, and even though it didn’t make sense, she felt herself getting afraid. Closing up. Leaving for the day. She couldn’t handle a man that mad. After Jack, it scared her way too bad. 

“I - I- I should go,” she said, shakily trying to stand up from the cot, now finding tears in her eyes that she didn’t ever recall asking for. “I-I want to go.” 

She said the last sentence with a hint of defiance, as if he had said she couldn’t go, when in fact, he never had, never wanted her here in the first place. 

He watched her through eyes that were narrow as slits, and then wrapped one large, warm hand around her wrist, preventing her from rising. He seemed to be having an internal battle inside of himself, as if he was trying to figure out the right thing to say. 

“Whatchu saying, duchess?” he asked, but this time the nickname didn’t come out harsh and bitter-sounding, but almost whisper-gentle, like he was coaxing a scared animal. “He hurt you?” 

And Sara shook her head violently, then regretted the motion as it seemed to loose thick tears from her eyes that were now falling down her cheeks. 

“No, no he didn’t. I – I am just tired, I don’t know,” she said, looking down at the ground in pure shame now. “I just want to go to bed, please.” 

At some point he had started to rub his fingers loosely up and down her forearm, as if he was trying to comfort her. She felt herself leaning into the motion, her eyes closing, and it was true, she was very tired all the sudden, all the adrenaline and anger of the day gone and now her body just a wet, shaking shell she wanted to put away. 

“Ain’t got no shoes,” he said, looking down at her bare feet, which were still wet and streaked with mud. He bit down on his lower lip thoughtfully. “I could…could carry you in?”

He asked hesitantly, as if he was scared he was being forward. 

“You have a hurt ankle, Daryl,” she smiled, a bright ray breaking through her tears for a moment. “’Sides I gotta get used to taking care of myself.” 

His eyes look conflicted for a moment, but then after staring at her for a second, he nodded. “That’s what you want, then,” he said. “Whatever you want.” 

She looked down at the first aid kit on the bed next to her. “Guess I haven’t been much of a nurse to you tonight. Just crying and carrying on. Bet you really think I’m a stupid Hollywood flake now, huh?” she laughed. “And here I wanted to show you I could be strong.” 

His hand, which was still loosely wrapped around her wrist, gripped tighter at that last sentence, so tight for a second it almost hurt. 

“You…you shouldn’t listen to the dumb shit I say, duchess,” he said, his face intense but unreadable to her. 

She tucked her hair behind her ear with the hand he didn’t have in his hold, and wiped away a tear from her cheek. 

“It’s okay,” she said, rising to her feet now. “You should read the stuff people say about you when you’re famous. I can take it. My ego isn’t as frail as it might seem.”  
And, then before he could even offer her a towel to take with her, she left his tent as unexpectedly as she came in, exiting into the night with a titled chin and a tear-stained face.

***

Merle didn’t come back to their tent all night, for which Daryl was deeply grateful. He assumed Merle was either on watch or in Andrea’s tent, or a combination of both, and for once his big brother had perfect timing because Daryl was in no mood to manage anything beyond the thoughts swirling inside of his own head. 

First, the redhead had taken him aback simply by offering to bring him a wrap for his ankle, and then she had burst into his tent like the world’s least intimidating intruder, her eyes raking up and down his naked torso like…like she might have liked what she saw. He knew that was absurd, laughable even, but then he had gotten closer to her, wiped the rain water off her silk-soft limbs and held her trembling body in his grasp, and he could have sworn he felt something in her. Something opening for him. Something warm and wanting. Something far and away from the disgust he would have expected. 

Then, no sooner had she sat on his bed but she threw him off-kilter again, rambling about her old life and cellulite and boyfriends, the whole of it sounding as ridiculous as a fairy-tale to him. He knew Hollywood was a far cry from the dirt towns he called home in Georgia, but he couldn’t conceive of a world where she might actually think her body would be a disappointment, that her naked self would fill a man with anything other than all-consuming, bone-breaking want. It was shocking to him. Her fear, her insecurity, the hurt she kept wrapping and unwrapping around herself like it was a well-worn cardigan. 

Stupid asshole that he was, he hadn’t ever thought that someone on a magazine cover could ever feel that way. That someone as beautiful and, let’s face it, fucking adorable as her could actually…hate something about herself. The idea of that was something huge and hard to master, the idea that she and he might have something in common, something cell-deep inside of them, a secret that they might have from the rest of them. 

And, then, then, the proclamation about Shane. She meant it to be a castaway comment, something to lighten the mood after she made a joke about being naked in front of him (and good god, the idea of that was not to be forgotten anytime soon), but in doing so, she had revealed something she clearly didn’t want to. Something that happened today, while he was out hunting like a stupid idiot in the rain and she was here alone. 

Except she wasn’t, not really. There was a whole team of people here, people who ought to look out for her, to look out for that sort of thing, especially from Shane who seemed to be unraveling more and more each day. But, he knew from experience, people only saw what they wanted to see. So, she had been in danger (But how much? And to what extent?) and alone. 

He wanted to badger her, demand to know the whole story, or at least go rip Shane’s arms from his body and beat him to death with them just on principle, but something about her expression had stilled him from doing anything. He had seen her shutting down, closing up like a morning glory folding its petals at nightfall, all the light draining out of her and just pure exhaustion shining in its place. Like a wounded animal, she wanted to limp off with her wounds alone. He knew that feeling.  
He respected it. So, he had let her go, let her run into the night without doing a damn thing. 

Sighing into his forearm, he rolled over his cot, wishing he could throw an animated corpse directly into Shane’s tent and listen to him being eaten alive. But, more than that, he wanted to see Sara right now. To know if she was okay. If she was sleeping. If she was worrying her bottom lip and staring at the ceiling, if she was running in nightmares all by herself. 

Daryl suddenly remembered how in the woods today he had promised himself not to think about the gray-eyed girl ever again, not to waste another moment wanting her and hating himself for not ever being able to have her. 

But, just because he couldn’t have her, he reasoned, didn’t mean he couldn’t watch her. Look out for her even. Especially with everyone else ignoring her, and especially with men like Shane around. 

Closing his eyes, he finally fell into a troubled sleep, his ankle throbbing like a heartbeat but his mind a million miles away.


	8. The Hen House

Every morning when Sara woke up, she and Beth looked for eggs in the Greene hen house. It was one of her favorite jobs. She loved the hens (but not the mean-ass rooster who she was scared to death of), and sometimes Sophia was allowed to come with them. She liked that. She always preferred the company of little girls to grown woman. They had so much more magic and silliness to them, they weren’t afraid to play-act and make up stories and laugh too loud. But this morning, Carol wanted to teach Sophia arithmetic, and Beth had to help her sister muck the barn. 

Sara didn’t know which task sounded worse, and she was grateful to be in the hen house, singing softly to the chickens as she gently poked around their nests for eggs. 

She was stroking the feathers of her favorite white hen and asking her about her day, when she suddenly heard a noise behind her. A whoosh of fear coming out of her mouth, she whirled around in a panic, dropping one of the eggs from the basket in her hand. 

“’S’alright, ‘s’alrihgt,” said a low Southern rumble which she instantly knew to be Daryl’s, and he walked out of the bright sunshine and into the dark hen house with his hands up as if he was under arrest. 

“I-I dropped an egg,” she said, looking down at the floor in dismay. 

“Shit, it’s just an egg,” he said, coming closer to her and looking her up and down. She was wearing a pair of tight white jeans and one of Maggie’s old band t-shirts, her hair up in a wild bun on top of her hand. 

“Lori wanted eggs for a..a quiche and now I’ve—

Daryl took the basket from her hands and placed it on the ground as if warding off another disaster. “Ain’t yet fault, I snuck up on ya. Heard ya talking, didn’t know you’s alone or I would have been more careful not to spook ya.”

Sara looked up at him and gave him one of her rare genuine smiles. He meant it, she knew. He really would have been careful not to come up on her fast, and that just tugged at her heart. Of course, it helped that he was still wearing that navy blue T-shirt from last night that brought out his eyes, and that he was looking at her with a gentle expression instead of a irritated one like usual. 

“Who were you talking to, anyway?” He asked after a beat, as if her smile had made him forget what he was about to say. 

“Fancy,” she said, pointing to the plump white hen in the nest to her left. “We were just having some girl talk.” 

“You talkin’ to a chicken, duchess?” asked Daryl in disbelief, a smirk on his face that reminded Sara of Merle. 

“I like talking to them,” she said defensively. “They don’t say stupid shit.” 

He shook his head good-naturedly. 

“How’s your ankle?” she asked suddenly, reaching her hand up to his chest. “I have something for ya, for the pain, if you want.” 

“Whatchu mean?” 

“Herschel gave me some pain pills for my ribs and stuff…Remember, when I came here, I was a little hurt?” Sara said, reaching into her pocket. “I been saving as many as I can, in case we would really need ‘em someday. I thought maybe you would want some.”

Daryl stared at her.

“Y’know, for your ankle?” she finished, now nervously looking down at the ground and feeling foolish. 

She could feel that he was staring at her still, so she forced himself to look up from the henhouse floor and into his eyes. 

His expression was impossible for her to read. His smirk was definitely gone though. 

“Ain’t taking yer painkillers, duchess,” he said finally, his voice raspier than usual. “Doc says you need ‘em, you take ‘em. You gotta mind him, he knows his stuff.” 

“But what about you?” Sara asked, twisting her chain around her fingers. 

Again, his face was unreadable to her. He stared down at her and then gave one of his Dixon grunts, shook his head and turned to walk out of the hen-house. Sara frowned, looking back down at the pain pills in her palm. She felt like she had offended him somehow, but she didn’t know how. Sighing, she picked up her eggs and gave Fancy one last pet. 

“At least you understand me,” she whispered and then smiled at her own foolishness. 

Fancy said nothing. 

****

Daryl sat on a stump with a mug of instant coffee beside him, working on lubricating the rails off his crossbow while he listened to Merle carrying on about how good Andrea was at giving head. He was used to Merle talking about his women like this, hell, Merle talked about every thought that came into his head, including whatever happened in his bedroom (or in this case, tent) the night before. 

Daryl had his ankle propped up on another stump, but the swelling had already gone down considerable, and he was itching to get back out in the woods. His exchange with Sara early that morning had left him feeling raw, like one giant bundle of nerves walking around the camp just itching to go off. 

Didn’t know exactly what it was that had got to him so bad. Maybe the way she had so casually brought up the way she had been found (“Remember? I was a little hurt?”), as if it was something he could have forgot, as if the bloody, battered state of her hadn’t been important enough for him to store in his mind. 

And then the painkillers. It fucking cut at him that she hadn’t been taking them like she should, and then she tried to hand them off to him, as if his stupid twisted ankle was more important than her pain. As if she cared about him. As if she was bothered he was hurt, bothered enough to pile up her pain pills and carry them around in her jeans (those tight jeans, in a pocket right next to her pussy) just waiting to run into him. 

He couldn’t remember the time a woman had ever taken care of him when he was sick or hurt. His momma sure never did. And he never had been the type for serious girlfriends. The only one who ever took care of him was Merle, and he didn’t exactly have a light touch. No, no one had ever looked up at Daryl with gray eyes liquid with concern and handed him medicine that would help him, even knowing that same act would keep themselves in pain.

It made his heart feel like someone was squeezing it too tight, like it was hard to breathe. He didn’t hate it though. He didn’t hate it and he knew he should. It reminded him of a story his daddy once told him about one of the guys he met in jail. This guy spent his whole sentence in solitary, years and years and years, only he finally got moved to a cell in gen-pop due to overcrowding and his good behavior. After years alone in a tiny room, he had cell-mates and a window and rec-time and could even go outside once a week. 

His daddy said the guy went insane within a month. Hung himself with a sheet. 

“Why?” Daryl always wanted to know. “Why wasn’t he happy? To finally be out of solitary and with his buddies again?”

“Sometimes when you been alone for too long, you can’t go back to the land of living,” his dad would say, a weariness in his face. “Better to stay where you used to, the hell that you know. You remember that, kid.” 

And Daryl had. But it wasn’t until today, until this morning in the hen-house with a soft little redhead handing him her pain medication that he had any idea what his daddy had been trying to tell him.


	9. Pecans

Herschel was the first one who noticed that Beth and Sara hadn’t been in the house for several hours. While he knew his daughter loved the outdoors, especially during late fall, he had given both her and Maggie strict rules about straying too far from their yard and outbuildings. 

And yet here was Lori, Shane and Andrea, all of them swearing up and down that neither his daughter nor the young Sara girl were out in the barn, or the coop, or the cowshed, or the now dilapidated milking parlor. 

“They ain’t anywhere ‘round this damn place, that’s for sure and certain,” drawled Shane, plopping his tired ass down on the brocaded armchair by the front door. 

“I’m not sure where they could be,” says the officer’s wife, trying to sound nonchalant and failing miserably.

Twilight was coming, and no one needed to be told that two people alone in the outdoors had every chance of not living through the night, especially two people like Beth and Sara…the former, an outdoorsy but naïve farmgirl, the latter, a city-girl who only ever sweated in a yoga studio. 

That is why Herschel had been quick to start looking for the pair of them, and demanding everyone else do the same…but to no avail. And with Rick, Daryl and Merle out on a scavenge run, there were even less people about the place to help with a search. 

“I think I might know where they went,” said Maggie, her lips in a thin line. Herschel hadn’t realized she had entered the room, but as if her sisterly radar went off, she was suddenly by her father’s side, looking an odd mixture of exasperated but frightened. For his part, Glenn had followed her into the room sheepishly behind her, and it was pretty clear to everyone what the couple had been up to while everyone else was searching the grounds. 

But Herschel had bigger concerns at the moment than his daughter’s romantic life. 

“Where, honey?” asked Herschel, “We need to find them right now. I’m sick with worry.” 

Maggie sighed, and ran her hands through her short dark hair. “The orchard,” she nearly whispered.

“The orchard!” shouted Herschel, his voice so commanding and enraged that even Sophia and Carl hushed up their Monopoly, Jr. game in the next room. 

“I didn’t know you had an orchard,” said Shane, sounding almost a little hungry at the thought, even in the middle of this potential disaster. 

“We DON’T!” snapped Maggie. “Don’tcha think we would have mentioned it if we did, ‘stead of eating possum for dinner every night?” 

“Alright, alright, hush now,” said Herschel to his daughter, and then to the others, “The orchard is located about 6 miles away, due east over at the Fairleighs’ place.” 

“What’s their story?” asked Shane bluntly, leaning forward and cracking his knuckles. 

“No, ‘story,’” said Maggie. “My brother…before he died, my brother went over to check on them. They were all gone and the place half packed up. They musta left when the first warnings came through on the radio.” 

“Why in the world would Beth want to go there, then?” asked Lori. 

“Pecans,” said Maggie and Herschel at the same instant. 

“Pecans?” asked Andrea, a bit amused. 

“Yeah, you’re telling us they went out there looking for…nuts?” asked Glenn, earning himself a smack on the arm from his girlfriend.

“It’s pecan season, dumbass,” said Maggie. “Beth’s favorite.” 

“Language, please,” said Herschel, striding over to the front door to put on his jacket. 

“Wait, wait, there!” said Shane standing up again. “You said it’s 6 miles away. And Rick and Daryl and Merle got the RV, and we ain’t got the truck working yet.” 

“What’s your point?” asked Herschel impatiently. “We need to move, now! That whole area is nothing but trees and wilderness, anything could creep up on them and they would be none the wiser!” 

“My point is,” snapped Shane, “That you can’t walk no 6 miles in a hurry. Nah, no way,” 

“You won’t stop me from going after my own daughter,” said Herschel, but even Maggie was nodding her head in agreement with the deputy. 

“Daddy, let Shane and Glenn and I go,” she said. 

“And me,” said Andrea. 

“No, you should stay here,” said Shane. “Keep a watch. Make sure the kids and Lori and Carol and Herschel are safe.” 

“No,” said Herschel. “The others may go, but you’re staying here with me, Maggie. And that’s final.” 

Maggie’s face twisted. “I can’t! They won’t even know how to get there.” 

“They can walk due east just as well as with ya as without ya. No, my word is final,” he said, not about to risk losing her when Beth could be lost or hurt or…worse. 

She opened her mouth to argue, but Glenn grabbed her into a tight hug and whispered, “We’ll find her, sweetheart. You stay here and take care of your dad. Me and Andrea and Shane will have them back in no time. I promise.”

Although his words were comforting, it was lucky his face wasn’t visible to the older sister, as it was stricken with an expression of anxiety and doubt. He was making a promise he didn’t know he could keep, and everyone in the room realized that. 

Especially Herschel. He had already buried one son and a wife, would he now be burying a daughter? 

*****   
If you asked Sara her favorite nut before the apocalypse, she probably would have said pistachios. Or maybe cashews. Hell, even almonds. Or walnuts. But fucking pecans? Not really. 

So why in god’s name had she walked with aching feet for hours in the chilly fall weather to go find that specific nut with Beth Greene?   
Because, Beth wanted to. Beth begged. Beth pleaded. Beth talked about pecan rolls, candied pecans, pecan ice cream, pecan fudge…basically this girl would not shut the fuck up about pecans and pecan season and all her mama’s recipes…and hell, when her big blue eyes welled up at the mention of the late Mrs. Greene, Sara would have walked across hot coals for the girl. 

But, they knew they had to be sneaky about it. 

“Daddy says I can’t leave our farm, but that’s bullSHIT,” said Beth, clearly enjoying the thrill cussing gave her. “I ain’t a little girl. I can take care of myself.” 

Sara had hid a smile at that, knowing that Beth’s very tone (so petulant, so very teenager) made her sound much younger than she realized. But, still, Sara was more than a little wary. She had been out there, out in those woods. Before Rick found her. She knew what it was like. She didn’t want to be responsible for putting Beth in danger. And, hell, she didn’t want to put herself in danger either. 

“No, no, don’t worry,” Beth had assured her. “The Fairleighs’ house is super close to ours. I used to ride my bike over there all the time and babysit their twins. Trust me, it’s a cakewalk. Plus, ain’t ya tired of being cooped up in this place?” 

She definitely was. Especially with Daryl gone on a supply run, she thought wistfully, though she didn’t say that aloud. In fact, ever since that day in the chicken coop, he seemed like he was avoiding her, not that he ever sought her out before. But now, he would get up mid-meal if she entered the room, or stalk off from his tent if she came up to trade books with Merle. And why could that be? She didn’t know. She had thought that they were on their way to establishing some kind of truce, and instead it seemed like he had gone and gotten all pissy with her again. 

So, Sara agreed to go looking for pecans.

She agreed. And that’s why she was here now, laying up against a tree, a knife in one hand, watching night fall and wondering where the hell Beth was, and more importantly, how the hell she was going get back home. 

The pecan search had gone sour within a couple of hours. By then it became apparent that Beth had greatly underestimated how long it would take to get to the Fairleighs on foot versus on a bike, and they were both limping from blisters and aching, raw feet. Nor had they brought enough water, and they only had a granola bar and an apple muffin between them. 

Sara tried to keep from chiding Beth, but she continued to urge her to turn around, only Beth seemed like a mad woman, driven to find pecans and make her mama’s pecan rolls if it killed her. Which it surely could, Sara tried to point out. 

“If you want to chicken out and go back home, then fine!” sassed Beth. “But I ain’t!” 

So, Sara had continued to follow the farmgirl, wishing she had the strength of will and the dominant personality needed to make Beth listen to her, but Sara had always struggled in situations like this. Dr. Kasey would say it’s because I am codependent, thought Sara ruefully, but whatever the reason, she had continued following the teenager, even as the afternoon sun grew old and the brush overgrowth rose higher. When they finally saw the Fairleighs’ orchard in the distance, the pair was too tired and overwrought to even be excited, although Beth had taken out her basket to start collecting pecans. 

But that was hours ago. Before a pack of walkers, two of whom were young girls dressed in identical playsuits, had come out from behind a patch of trees and straight for Sara and Beth. Without a plan, they started to run frantically, but in the unpruned, wild trees with their low-hanging branches, they became separated within minutes. Nor could they call for each other without attracting attention from the walkers. Instead, Sara had to limp on blistered feet, adrenaline coursing through her veins like fire, desperately hunting for anywhere Beth might have gone. 

Her search had been fruitless, and now it was getting dark. Sara comforted herself with the knowledge that Beth probably could find her way back to the farmhouse even in the dark, having grown up in this farming town her whole life, but where did that leave Sara? She had no idea where she was, and she had gotten completely turned around while running from the walkers and then her subsequent wanderings after Beth. 

Now, sunk on the orchard floor with her back to a pecan tree, Sara forced herself to face the horrifying reality that lay before her: She was going to have to live another night alone out in the woods of Georgia. Another night alone…except for the dead.


	10. Tree Fantasy

When Daryl, Rick and Merle had returned to the farm house later that night, they were met not with a sleepy, quiet abode, but a house lit up with candles, kerosene lanterns and the high wattage of adrenaline and terror. 

The three men didn’t even stop to look at each other, striding straight in the house, their faces grim, not knowing what bloodshed or bad news awaited them. 

“What is it?” demanded Rick, running straight into Lori’s embrace. “Is Carl okay?”

Lori had nodded quickly, reaching her hand up to stroke her husband’s hair. “He’s fine. He’s sleeping with Sophia upstairs. It’s Beth,” she said. “And Sara,” she added.

Daryl heard their exchange and felt something break inside of him. 

“What happened?” asked Merle, giving his brother a worried look.

“Beth wanted to go get pecans. From the Fairleigh Orchard,” said Maggie, who was sitting down by the fireplace in Glenn’s embrace. 

“Several miles away, man. Real dumb idea,” said Shane to Rick, pausing briefly to shovel some rice into his mouth. “She’s lucky we found her.” 

“Found who?” snapped Daryl. 

“Beth,” said Glenn, shooting Maggie a relieved smile. “She was limping pretty bad, but she wasn’t too far out when we found her. Got some nasty scrapes though.” 

“Daddy’s taking care of her with Carol,” said Maggie. “She needs some stitches on—

“Then where the hell is Sara?” Daryl interrupted. 

The room went silent. 

“Are you FUCKING serious? She’s still out there?!”

“Hey, man,” said Shane, slamming down his beer bottle. “It got dark. We couldn’t see two inches in front of our fuckin’ faces hardly. Beth didn’t know where the hell she went.”

“She could be anywhere,” said Glenn quietly. “But we will look tomorrow.”

“Yeah, all of us will,” said Maggie. 

Daryl stared at the room full of survivors with a simmering rage he hadn’t felt since he was a kid. 

Merle stepped up and grabbed his arm, saying, “They right, man, we gotta wait till daybreak. No point in running around in the dark and falling in a swamp or something.” 

Daryl shook his big brother’s hand off angrily. “Fuck off,” he said, picking up his crossbow and heading out the door, letting the old screen slam loudly behind him. 

“Shit,” hissed Merle, “Ain’t this some shit. And all I wanted some dinner and some pussy.” 

Andrea rolled her eyes at that, a hint of a smile on her face as Merle strode out after his brother in the chilly night air. 

“Daryl! Daryl!” he shouted, taking long strides to chase after him. “The fuck you doin’, man? C’mon! Think!” 

“I am thinking!” Daryl said, his low, hoarse voice shaking with emotion. “I’m thinking, she’s out there alone, by herself, no gun and no experience out there. I’m thinking it’s cold, and it’s dark…and she’s scared of the dark.” 

Merle stood there for a moment, watching his brother throw supplies from their tent into a knapsack. 

“She’s scared of the dark,” Daryl repeated in a fretful, angry tone almost as if he was speaking to himself. 

“Shit, bro,” Merle said. “You’re fucking in love with her.” 

“The fuck you sayin’?” snapped Daryl, rolling his eyes and throwing some bottles of water into his bag. 

Merle just shook his head, marveling at his brother’s display of emotion. 

“Never thought I’d see the day,” Merle said, smiling a little, but his eyes looked worried. 

“Fuck off, man, ain’t got time for this shit,” said Daryl. 

Merle sighed. “Lemme come with ya.”

“Nah,” he said, “Better alone.” 

Merle knew that was true. Daryl was a deadly predator in the woods, moving on near-silent feet and tracking prey like it was in his DNA, whereas Merle was heavy-footed and over-talkative and easily distracted. 

“Shit, bro,” Merle repeated. “You sure she’s worth this?”

“The fuck is your issue? Thought you liked her!” said Daryl, throwing on the knapsack and stepping close to Merle, staring him down. “Hell, you seem just as cold about her as all them in there!”

“They ain’t…cold about her, Darleena,” said Merle, shaking his head. “They just ain’t as hot for her as you.” 

Daryl flipped him off and started walking away. 

“I do like her, bro!” Merle called out angrily. And then a little quieter, much quieter, he added, “Just like you more.” 

***

Upon hearing rustling nearby, Sara had moved from the orchard floor up to one of the highest branches she could reach on a pecan tree. It turned out just to be a raccoon, and the sight of it scurrying along the leaf-covered ground made Sara think of the night she had encountered Daryl out on the porch. 

For some stupid reason, that made tears sting in her eyes. Her stomach felt like knives were stabbing it, probably because she had no food, not to mention she had drank the rest of her water hours ago. And, god, she was cold. So fucking cold. But if she had to be honest, all she wanted right now, even more than food or water or a blanket…was Daryl. 

She knew that was ridiculous. Pathetic even. To want a man so badly who seemed to want nothing to do with her. But just thinking about Daryl made her feel warm inside, and the fantasy of being safe in his arms helped somewhat ease the loose, wild horror which kept crowding her belly. So she allowed herself that small comfort. She sagged against the tree’s broad trunk and she let herself pretend that she was safe at the farm house, in her own warm bed, except instead of Beth beside her, it was a husky-voiced Southern man with ripped arms and a tender touch. 

She closed her eyes.


	11. "I Know"

Daryl drove the RV due east, miles above the speed limit, not that speed limits meant shit now. His plan was to drive to the orchard, park the RV, and then start looking for her on foot, making small circles over each mile until he had covered all the orchard property. If he had to guess, he suspected that Sara was probably hunkered down somewhere, like a squirrel hiding in nest or another small, terrified animal waiting out the night. 

The thought of that—of her, alone in the dark, those big gray eyes of hers shining with fear, her hands clutching her necklace chain—made his heart hurt. What was she thinking coming out here? She had to have known what a major risk that was. The only reason she would do something like that was if someone else, someone with blonde hair and an apparent obsession with pecans had put her up to it. He wanted to strangle Beth Greene. He knew this had to be her idea. But more than being mad at Beth, he was furious with himself. Why, exactly, he couldn’t say. For going on a supply run and not even thinking about her safety. For being a jackass to her the last couple of days, refusing to look at her and icing her out. For being Daryl Dixon instead of another man, a better man, a good man, a man worthy of her. 

But, right now, none of that mattered. 

She was alone out there. In the dark. And he didn’t know what scared him more…the thought of the dead finding her or the thought of the living finding her. 

He slammed the RV door and started walking. 

***

Sara’s lower back was aching. She felt like her entire body was numb from clutching on to the tree, and her feet were hurting so bad she was sure her Converse were filled with blood. 

She kept dozing off from sheer exhaustion, but every time her head fell down, she would awaken and snap her eyes open, looking around frantically. 

On her most recent awakening, she saw a cone of light moving through the orchard. At first, she thought she was seeing things. Then she wondered if it was aliens. If zombies were real, why not Martians? All she knew was she was terrified, especially as the light got closer and closer and Sara could see it was a flashlight. 

A man with a flashlight. 

Every horror movie that Sara had ever seen (or starred in) flashed through her eyes. Farmland in the middle of nowhere, a young woman alone in the night, and a big scary man coming her way carrying a flashlight. 

A flashlight. And a…Sara squinted her eyes. There was a moon, but it was only half of one, and a cloud was blocking it. 

She held her breath, and the cloud moved. 

A crossbow. 

Sara’s hands flew to her chest. She let out a sagging, whole-body exhale. 

And then, she screamed, “Daryl!” 

The flashlight stopped. And then, in an instant, it was moving towards her, faster and faster, and she could hear his footsteps as well as see him now. She started climbing down the tree, as she saw him hold the light up to the tree. He saw her. 

She was grinning at him, nearly shivering with happiness, but he hushed her angrily. 

“HUSH, girl!” he hissed. “Stay up there and be quiet. Don’t make a sound.” 

Smile dropping, she clung back to the tree and half-wrapped her legs around the trunk. 

He shut off his light. 

She was about to say “Daryl,” as she was once again thrown back in the darkness, but she trusted him enough to do what he said. Still, tears fell from her eyes silently. 

Several moments passed. 

Then, she heard quiet rustling at the foot of the tree. 

“C’mon,” he said, and the light came back on. The tree illuminated now, Sara shakily began to make her descent, finding it much harder to come down than it was to come up. She almost lost her footing several times, and the bark scratched her soft hands so bad that they were now covered in scratches and stinging droplets of blood. 

“You found me,” she said, as she finally reached the ground and put her hands up on Daryl’s chest to steady herself. 

He grunted, and then looked down at her feet, which she was standing on gingerly. 

“Girl,” he said, “I’m gonna put you on my back. And then I’m gonna walk back to the RV without the flashlight.” 

“In the dark?” she cried, her fear overcoming her listening to the first part of his plan. 

“Shouldnta have risked it to begin with, but I wanted to be sure I didn’t miss ya or any tracks,” he said, “But someone might have heard ya scream my name. I can find the way back by the moonlight, it’s a straight shot.” 

She nodded, pulling on her necklace chain, and then suddenly wincing as her scraped-up hands made the motion painful. 

He saw her wince and reached out to brush a strand of hair from her face. 

“You real hurt?” he asked, in a gentle voice that surprised her. 

She shook her head, trying to ignore how good his callused fingers felt on her soft cheek. “No, no, I’m fine. Just some scratches.” 

“Alright, gotta move then,” he said, and then he crouched down in front of her. 

She stood there confused. 

“Climb on, Duchess,” he said. “Shit, I know it ain’t no limo but its gotta do.” 

“But I am so heavy—

“Now, girl.” 

His voice was commanding and urgent but Sara could detect a hint of fear in it. Fear of the walkers, fear of other survivors, fear of her being on top of him, she didn’t know. But she knew she needed to obey quickly, so she did, carefully stepping onto his back and then wrapping her arms around his neck. He stood up quickly, and then forced her weight up a little, making her squeak as she felt him effortlessly lift her higher on top of him. His hands reached around and grabbed the crook of her knees, pulling her thighs around his back. She blushed a little at the action. 

She clutched her arms a little closer around him, and moved her head up near his shoulder, smelling the sweat and campfire smoke coming off him. Unintentionally, she let out a small moan. 

“What, girl?” he asked, trying to quirk his head back at her, but failing due to the angle. “You good?”

“You’re so warm.” 

He snorted at that. “Yeah, girl, ya feel like a little popsicle.” 

“Sorry,” she said, embarrassed at how uncomfortable he must be from her weight and her cold temperature and her general inability to survive in a zombie apocalypse. She pulled back a little instinctively, trying to take her shivering arms from off his bare neck. 

Using his right hand, he reached up and grabbed her arms back quickly. “No, don’t…wasn’t complaining. Keep tight around me, kay?” 

She happily obeyed, giving herself the luxury of snuggling into him a little deeper. He really was warm, and even though his body was all hard muscle, he felt so wonderfully soft and comfortable after clutching a tree trunk for hours. 

Sighing, she closed her eyes, letting the rhythmic motion of Daryl’s walking lull her into a mild stupor. It had been a long, brutal day, and she was –

“BETH!” she hissed suddenly. “Beth!” 

She started trying to scrabble down off Daryl’s back but he held her in place with a vice-grip. “STOP, girl, hush,” he said, but she wasn’t listening. 

“Beth, Beth, we have to get Beth!” she said, finally freeing herself from Daryl’s back and landing to the ground with a thud, as he still had both his legs in his hands. 

Letting out a growl, Daryl whirled around and bent down, grabbing Sara off the ground, lifting her up and pinning him into his chest like he was carrying a newborn baby.

“She’s HOME, she’s fine, they got her,” he said, struggling to hold onto the girl who was still bucking and twisting in his arms.

Finally, his words seem to settle into her consciousness, and she slowed down her movements, then stopped. 

Then, with a quiet sob, the pain and terror of the day crashed over, and turning her face into Daryl’s warm neck, she started to cry piteously. 

Daryl huffed as if in pain. “Gonna get you home, too, okay? Gonna get you home.” 

Sara twisted her fingers into his t-shirt and nodded, tears still sliding down her face.

“Shit,” he said. “You cry all you want. You had a real bad day.”

She looked up at him through her tears, and wrapped a soft arm tightly around his bare neck. 

He froze a little at her increased touch, but then relaxed into it. “Thank you for finding me, Daryl,” she said, closing her eyes and nestling deeper into him. 

He bit his lip and shrugged, the motion jostling her slightly. 

“You’re so good to me,” she breathed, her voice low and weary now, as if she was nearly asleep. 

Daryl bit back a gasp. 

“Shh, girl, talkin’ crazy,” he muttered. “Just close your eyes. You’re safe now.” 

“I…know,” she sighed, and then, just as she pictured hours earlier, she was snuggled in Daryl’s big, warm chest, sleeping as soundly as a lioness by her man in the cold untamed night air.


	12. Enough Light

When Sara woke up, she was no longer in Daryl’s arms, but instead laying on a strange bed in a dark room. The events of the last 12 hours rushing through her mind, she sat up with a bolt, but she was quickly relieved when she turned and saw Daryl sitting beside her on the bed, upright against the pillows, his eyes shut. 

She stared at him silently for a second, and felt a smile growing across her face. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could make out the fact that they were in the small back bedroom of the RV. She was out of the woods, she thought. She was safe indoors. Safe with Daryl. A sleeping Daryl, of all things. It was strange to see him like this, strange to see him unguarded and in repose, although even in sleep his face still looked somber and watchful, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it made her chest clench just a little as she looked at him and wondered about him, about his life before all this. Who he was. How he lived. Who he loved. 

Before she got caught up in unpleasant jealous thoughts of who Daryl might have been fucking before the world ended, Sara brought her attention to the rich, raw pain radiating off her feet. In her sleep, Daryl must have taken off her Converse, because when she pulled off the flannel blanket, she saw that her feet were bare. She winced as she took in the sight of them. Her toes were blistered and the skin on the backs of her ankles were rubbed raw. Worst of all, she felt like her ribs were hurting as bad as when she first broke them. Herschel had told her to take it easy until they healed, and she hadn’t listened. 

Gingerly reaching her fingers up under tank top, she winced a little as she probed her right side, cursing herself internally for being so stupid, all for the sake of fuckin’ PECANS. 

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Daryl move behind her. Sara glanced back and was shocked to see him just a few inches behind her, eyes wide open and looking down at her with a worried look.

“Fucked up your ribs again, didn’t ya?” he said, and she flushed a little at his tone. He always seemed to be catching her at her worst, her most incompetent. 

As if sensing her reaction, Daryl’s voice softened a little, “Just meant….hell, let me feel.” 

Her hand fell away from her ribs, and she tensed like a piece of glass in his hands, looking up at him with wide eyes as his warm, large hands were suddenly on her belly, then her side. 

“Can’t feel nothin’ like that,” he said, “Lay down, girl.” 

She cautiously laid back down on the pillows, letting Daryl push up her gray flannel as he felt her ribs, his brows knitted an intense look of concentration on his face. 

“I broke my ribs a few times when I was younger,” he explained. “On my motorcycle and…other stuff.” 

She nodded absently, finding it hard to concentrate when his hands were on her naked flesh, when she was laying in bed with his big hands moving up and down her skin as if looking for some secret treasure. Which was ridiculous, she knew. He was just trying to be nice. 

“You’re supposed to push on the…chest. The breastbone,” he said a little awkwardly. “To see where the pain is coming from.” 

Her eyes widened at that, and she nodded again, but he just stayed where he was, his hands wrapped on her side, unmoving. 

“It’s okay,” she said, wondering if he didn’t see her nod in the dark. 

“I don’t want hurt ya,” he said. “Maybe we should wait until daybreak and let Herschel look you over.” 

She didn’t say anything. She felt incapable of speech, and she wondered if he realized his hands were still on her body, that her shirt was halfway pushed up and they were alone in a dark bedroom together. 

“Are you having any shortness of breath?” 

Um, YES, she wanted to say. She felt like the room was spinning, like she was being sucked into a Daryl vortex, like she was being completely engulfed in his hands and the only thing she could see was his squinted blue eyes and his masculine jawline. 

“Girl?” 

She shook her head. And then nodded. And then shook her head. And then yawned. 

He caught the action and said, “You must be exhausted. It’s only been a couple hours since I found you,” and then as she yawned again, he added, “You hungry? I got food and water in my bag.” 

He took his hands off her and rose off the bed, and she felt immediately bereft, a cold spot growing instantly on her ribs were his hands had left her. But, food did sound amazing and her stomach growled against her will. 

Uncapping a bottle of water, he handed it to her and said, “Drink all this, but real slow, ‘kay?” 

She sighed in gratitude and tried to heed his advice, but she was so thirsty she nearly chugged the whole thing in just a couple slurps. 

He shook his head. “Can’t understand what you were thinking, trying to walk all this way without the right supplies,” he scolded, but instead of launching into a tirade, he handed her a Luna bar and changed the subject, saying, “The RV was giving me trouble when I got you back here. It happened on the run with Merle and Rick, too.” 

She was trying to pay attention but her shaking hands couldn’t peel off the wrapper. “It’s broken,” she wailed, half kidding, half truly starving and irritated. 

He chuckled, “Give it here, ya big baby,” and took it from her, easily opening the cellophane. 

“You need to me to feed it you, too?” he asked teasingly. 

She waggled her eyebrows. “Don’t tempt me with a good time,” she joked back, beyond excited to have sugar and carbs in her hands, and she let out a ridiculously pleased moan as she sank back on the pillow and took a bite.

“Want me to leave you alone there, Duchess?” he laughed. “Shit, sounds like you having a real moment.” 

She flipped him off and then asked, “So you can fix it? The RV, I mean?” 

He nodded, “Yeah, but I need daylight…and I didn’t wanna leave you in here alone while I was out under the hood.” 

She shivered at thought of him out there alone in the dark. “Beth told me the people who used to live here left ages ago,” she said. “Before it even got really bad. But, she musta been wrong…we came across two walkers, twin little girls…had to have been the little girls who Beth used to babysit here.” 

Daryl tensed a little at that, and put his backpack down. He walked over to his side of the bed and sat down next to her, chewing on his thumbnail with a preoccupied expression. 

“Close call?” he asked lowly. 

Sara paused eating to look up at him. Just having sit back down on the bed made him feel warmer, and she suddenly realized she was shaking a little. 

“Just the adrenaline leaving your body,” he said consolingly, as if reading her mind yet again. “Plus, you’re probably still cold as shit. The fuck you thinking going out there without a real jacket on?” 

She closed her eyes. “Stupid,” she uttered, figuring that one word ought to suffice. 

He sucked his teeth at that and reached down to pull the blanket back on top of her. “Warm?” he asked. 

“No,” she complained, tossing her empty Luna bar wrapper on the nightstand and crossing her arms uselessly. “This blanket is thinner than an Olsen twin.” 

“Am I supposed ta know who that is?” he asked, a little amusedly. 

“Did you own a T.V. before the apocalypse?” she laughed. “Hello? ‘Full House’? The show with the 3 uncles living in one house, taking care of the little girls?” 

He rolled his eyes, “Sounds stupid,” he said gruffly, but he was smiling. 

“Aren’t you going to lay down?” she asked, as he continued sitting upright while she snuggled deeper into the bed.

His body went rigid. “Nah, girl, I’m fine.” 

She felt a little rejected at that, at his unwillingness even to lay in a comfortable position if it meant being in an pseudo-intimate situation with her. 

“Ain’t tired,” he said, a little defensively.

“You were sleeping earlier,” she pointed out, looking up at him in the dark and twisting her necklace chain in the dark. “I don’t bite, you know.” 

“Shit, girl,” he said, his face flushing a little as he let out a tight exhale. “I shouldn’t even be in here with you. Should be out there keeping watch. No clue what could be out there. Who might still be alive out there in that house.” 

“Oh,” she said, and the thought of that made her eyes go wide. He was right. They could be camped out in front of the house from Texas Chainsaw Massacre for all she knew. 

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said quickly, as if sensing her fear growing. “Just sayin’, if I lay down I could fall real deep asleep or, or, or…just get distracted.” 

That made her grin a little. Was this his way of saying if he laid down they might…fuck? Be still my beating heart, she thought. 

“Now, stop smiling at me, Duchess, and go to sleep,” he said in annoyance, but she could see that he was smiling back at her, and that his tone was only in jest. 

“Fine,” she sighed, closing her eyes, but then mischievously added, “Will you at least hold my hand and sing me a lullaby?”

“Fuck outta here,” he said, but then after a few seconds of silence passed, she felt his fingers close around her hers, wrapping her small hand in his larger one, enveloping her in his grasp. 

Her mouth fell open and she looked up at him, but he clucked his tongue and just said, “Shh!” 

“Hmmm,” she breathed, letting her body relax deep into the mattress, beginning to feel weightless as sleep slowly overcame her. But even as her mind drifted away, she felt her hand still clasped in Daryl’s hold, and the sensation warmed her up from the inside out. 

She stopped shivering and fell asleep, but not before reaching out to wrap her other hand around his forearm, curling into him like a kitten and rubbing her cold cheek on his warm hand. As she did so, she could have swore she heard him drawl, “Girllll,” affectionately, but then sleep claimed her. 

***

Daryl looked down at the sleeping girl who was wrapped around his arm like it was her favorite stuffed animal. His eyes were burning with tiredness, but he felt like his whole body was alive with energy. He couldn’t believe it, not only that she was here in bed beside him (even if he had insisted on sitting up, his stupid self scared to lay down next to her like…like they was a couple or something), but also that he had found her in the first place. 

Even though he had every intention of searching until he dropped, part of him (the part of him that grew up with beatings and missed meals and no Christmas mornings and forgotten birthdays, the part of him that accepted pain and loss like it was his just desserts) expected that he would never see her alive again. Not only were the odds against anyone surviving alone in the woods without protection these days, but the odds were also stacked against Daryl Dixon himself, stacked against his happiness, or so he felt. 

So, yeah, looking down at her warm and safe and almost smiling in her sleep, instead of finding her corpse, that felt like a fuckin’ miracle. And Dixons weren’t supposed to get miracles. 

But, then he told himself harshly, this wasn’t really his miracle. She wasn’t his. Wouldn’t ever be his. Was only laying next to him in this bed because she had the bad luck to be in Georgia when the dead started walking, ‘stead of in her mansion in L.A. where she probably lived with her pretty-boy boyfriend, a man who probably spent more on haircuts than Daryl did in rent. A man who had probably been to Europe and had a college degree and a private plane. A man who probably had a real family, the kind of family who invited Sara over for holidays and served food on real plates and made her smile and feel loved. A man who gave her things he could never give her, not even if the dead weren’t walking. 

His self-hatred aside he just couldn’t shake that expression she had on her face when she finally scrabbled out of that tree, that sweet, broken, girlish look she gave him that made him feel an odd combination of protective and aroused. 

Fuck, he was a fucking pervert. 

He didn’t really mean it like that, though. Not aroused just as in he wanted to fuck her, although he had to face that, yes, hell yes, he did want to fuck her, more than he ever wanted to fuck any woman before. 

But also aroused as in, she made him feel like he had been sleeping before he met her, as if part of him had been in hibernation, and now that she was in his world, he was fully awake for the first time. What part of him had been aroused he didn’t fully know, what part of him whooshed into flight when he saw her looking at up him with that mix of meekness and fear and pure need, he wasn’t sure. 

He only knew that he liked it. He never knew his cock could get so rock-hard just from a girl looking up at him from under her lashes, that he could feel such strangling, haunting desire just from the soft sound of her voice, that his world could feel so utterly undone just at the thought of her being scared and alone in the dark. 

Shit. Shit, he was fucked. 

Because, here was the thing: He had the feeling that she wasn’t totally against him touching her. Just the opposite. As crazy as it sounded to his ears, as crazy as it would sound to the ears of anyone at the farm, he sort of had this inkling that she liked his hands on her. He sensed it out at the orchard, when he felt her not just clinging on to him, but almost inhaling him, snuggling against him like he was a soft place to land. He could chalk that up to pure gratitude and relief at being rescued, but later in the RV when he was stroking her small ribs, his hands almost spanning her waist, he had seen her eyes change, a haze come over them as if she couldn’t pay attention to his words, as if his touch was taking her someplace else, someplace good. 

And goddamn but he didn’t want to stop. Wasn’t going to stop, until she yawned and he remembered (he was such an idiot) that she hadn’t had food or water nearly all day, and that she survived a torturous ordeal, physically and emotionally. But, he wondered, if she hadn’t yawned…if she had kept laying there looking at him with that submissive, blissed-out look in her gray eyes, what would she have let him do, how far would he have been able to go? 

Would she have let him push her shirt up over her head, let her red hair down in waves over her bra, let him straddle her while his hands explored her, let him ease off her jeans, feel that warm cunt on his fingers through her panties, taste her sweet nipples in his mouth, let him slide just a finger in her pussy, just to feel it for a second, to know if she was as flushed and warm and dainty there as she was everywhere else…fuck.

Shit. And now he was fucking hard again. How ironic, as that was part of the reason he didn’t want to lay by her in the first place. Knew he would get the hard-on of his life, a hard-on that wouldn’t go away, and he was scared she would see it or worse…feel it, although thinking of THAT, of her rubbing her ass up against his hard cock while she slept…shit. Yeah. It was gonna be a long night, a long time until he could be alone in his tent and stroke his dick while he thought of nothing but her and her perfect tits and her thick ass and that fuckin’ look of hers, that fuckin’ sweet, obedient little look she was always giving him. 

He looked down with a squint, and was happy to see she was still deep asleep, still wrapped up close to him like she was hanging on to his forearm for dear life. Shit. 

He hummed a little smile at that, using his other hand to quickly rearrange his pulsing cock. He was going to wind up with the biggest blue balls of his entire fucking life, but as long as she was holding on to him like that, he wasn’t gonna complain. He didn’t care if the sun ever rose. 

Had enough light right now as it was.


	13. Splinters

“Girl, hold still,” said Daryl sternly, but Sara continued to squirm away from him. 

It was early morning and they were sitting in the grass outside the RV, Daryl trying to use a pair of tweezers to get a piece of bark out of Sara’s hand. After she had cleaned herself up in the morning, she realized that her palm weren’t just smarting in pain just because she over-used them on the rough tree, but because there was actually piece of the aforementioned tree lodged in her left palm. When she found him outside and showed him, he insisted on stopping his work on the RV and getting it out right away. 

“Could get infected or something,” he said, frowning. “Shoulda made you wash up last night, shit. That was stupid of me.”

“Yeah,” she said self-deprecatingly. “Cause you’re the stupid one here.” 

He shook his head wordlessly, and then found the first aid kit inside the RV. 

“Do it outside, light’s better,” he said, pulling out a very shiny and sharp pair of tweezers. 

Her face blanched. Bad as her hand was aching right now, the last thing she wanted was a sharp object near her open wound. 

“Can’t we just…hope it goes away on its own?” she said childishly. 

He clucked his tongue and prodded her out to the grass. “It’s just like taking out a splinter, a real big splinter,” he said. “Know you done that before.” 

She blinked. 

“Right?” he asked. 

“Had a splinter?” she asked.

He nodded.

She reflected, her face lost in thought for a minute. 

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I can’t remember.”

“Like when you was a kid, playing outside? At the playground?” 

Sara shrugged. “I didn’t do that kind of stuff really.” 

“You didn’t play outside?” 

“There wasn’t a lot of free time,” she said. “But sometimes if I had a free day off set, my mom would take me to the beach.” 

“A free day off set?” he repeated slowly, as if she was speaking a foreign language. 

“Yeah,” she said, flushing a little and wishing she hadn’t started this conversation. She was scared of sounding braggy, but also scared of sounding too different, too alien, because she had the feeling that turned Daryl off or something. And that’s the last thing she wanted to do. 

“Like a movie set?” 

“Well…sometimes, I did movies as kid,” she said. “But I meant the television show I was in. That’s what I mainly did back then. I did it for 7 years, so, between that and school and promo tours and meet-and-greets…I don’t know. No splinters.” 

“What was it called?” he asked. “The show?”

It occurred to her that Daryl had never asked before anything about her line of work. If anything, he acted disgusted by it. She didn’t know what to make of his newfound interest in her. 

“’Jamie’s Diary’,” said Sara. “It was a kids’ show. Like a sitcom.”

He let out a ‘hmmm’ at that, and she could tell he never heard of it. But why would he? He was about 10-15 years older than her, at least, and he didn’t exactly seem like the kind of guy who watched Nickelodeon. 

“So, yeah,” she finished lamely. “No splinters…” 

She steeled herself for a smart-ass remark, but instead he just said, “Well, damn, you really are a housecat, aren’t you? Shit. I got a lot to teach ya.” 

Her cheeks went high pink at that. But if he noticed, he didn’t say anything, instead wrapping his hand around her wounded one, and beginning to try to nudge the stubborn piece of bark out of her palm. She bit her lip and tried to be brave, but she made the grave mistake at looking down at what he was doing, and it made her stomach turn. 

“Gross, gross, ow, ow, get it out,” she moaned, knowing she was being a huge baby. 

Daryl patiently just stated the obvious, “I’m trying,” and continued crouching in front of her, gripping her wrist in his hand tightly while she tried to pull away. 

“Fuck!” she cried out, as the tweezers grazed a particularly tender bit of her soft flesh. 

“Shit…sorry, girl,” he said, his forehead knitting, “Ya moving too damn much, though.” 

She furled up her palm instinctively, and he looked up at her from under the dark strands of hair on his forehead, icy-blue eyes flashing worriedly. “You gotta relax your hand, ya forcing it deeper in,” he said. 

She let out a grouchy little exhale and tried to obey, but her mind wouldn’t let her open up her hand entirely. 

Sighing with a small, heavy sound, Daryl said, “Okay, girl, ‘fraid ya ain’t gonna like me very much after this,” and then, before she could ask what he meant, he suddenly changed position in the grass so that he was now kneeling in front of her, pulling her arm with the injured palm around his chest, and tightly securing it under his armpit. Gasping, she felt herself fall forward a little onto him, her chest grazing his back, as he held her arm in a vice grip with the power of his large biceps, and then using his free hand, he wrenched open her palm while he used the other hand to run the tweezers carefully into the wound. 

She nearly cried out in pain, but she thought better of it, realizing that they were still in a vulnerable position out in the open. Instead, she found herself resting her forehead on his muscled back. He didn’t flinch from her touch, but instead kept working quickly, and after less than a minute, she heard him swear, “Got it, shit!” 

She felt her arm go slack but she didn’t move away immediately. “Gonna disinfect and bandage it now,” he said, turning his head towards her slightly. She nodded against him, deciding she wasn’t going to move until he made her. His back was so warm, and his smell was intoxicating to her, a combination of sweat and spice and woods and Daryl that made her cunt clench tightly. 

Sara heard the sound of paper crinkling as he unwrapped the bandaids, and then felt the medicinal burn on her flesh as he cleaned the wound quickly. She felt his body go tense and rigid when she winced, and it made the muscles on his back get even tighter under her as a result. She breathed a small moan at the feeling of that, at the feeling of his strength and power coiled up just there in her reach. In that moment, she forgot all about her pain, and as if sensing her altered state of mind, he wrapped up her palm efficiently. 

Now finished, he released her hand. She didn’t move, her arm now free of his grasp but still laying loosely around him, her cheek still resting on his back. 

He seemed uncertain what to do, and she smiled a little at that, at the knowledge that she could make him nervous—that she, little Sara Malone who didn’t know shit about survival and never ever had a damn splinter—could make Daryl Dixon anxious. 

Finally speaking, his voice a little raspy and catching in his throat, he asked, “Ya okay, duchess?” 

She smiled, loving the sound of his deep, warm voice coming from inside of him as she laid on his back. 

“Yeah,” she said, adding in an faux-wounded. “But you tricked me.”

“Was mean o’ me,” he acknowledged. “Had to be done though.” 

She looked up at him and smiled, letting her fingers rub across his hard abdomen as she slowly pulled her arm away from him. “I know. Thank you, Daryl.” 

He looked at her, and then back down at his now-empty hands. 

“Will ya let me do your feet now?” he asked, sitting back on his spot in front of her on the grass, and motioning to her bare feet which were still looking worse for wear after walking all day in Beth’s too-small Converse. 

“What about the RV?” she asked. 

“No rush,” he shrugged. “Plenty of day left. ‘Sides, I bet the others will be along soon. They was waiting till daybreak to come search.” 

His face went a little dark at that. 

“Oh,” said Sara, understanding slowly dawning as Daryl eased one of her sore feet into his lap, picking up the alcohol wipes and bandages. 

“Why didn’t you?” she asked, wincing and closing her eyes as she felt the burning on her raw heel. “Wait till daybreak too?” 

He didn’t speak for a moment, and she had the urge to open her eyes but thought better of it, instead letting herself relax under his ministrations and allow her body to go limp. 

Finally, he spoke, his tone hoarse and a bit angry, “Anything coulda happened to ya by then. Plus…I knew…you would be real scared out here alone, ‘specially at night.” 

Now, she did open her eyes, and she knew they had be reflecting at least some of the admiration and attraction she felt for him, because suddenly he flushed and looked down intently at her feet. 

“Need new shoes, girl,” he said. 

She sighed. “I know, Beth’s feet are smaller than mine. You should see me trying to fit into her bras.”

His hand slipped clumsily and he dropped the bandaid box. 

She bit her bottom lip to keep from grinning, but her eyes were dancing when he looked up at her. 

“Workin’ here, girl, stop distracting me,” he lectured in a faux-serious tone, and then he went back to work on her feet, switching to the right one now, which was in a better state than the left, except for the raw callused spot on the big toe. “What size shoe are you?” 

“Seven,” she said. “What size are you?” 

He harrumphed at that. “What you care? I ain’t the one with two bloody pirate stumps for feet.”

She barked out a sudden laugh, a signature Sara Malone cackle, and he smiled a little at the sound. 

“I want to know,” she said. “That’s all. You know so much about me, and I don’t know anything about you.” 

He looked up in surprise. “What do you mean? What’s there to know?” 

She slapped his arm playfully. “Are you serious?! Everything!” And then with a impish expression, she started rattling out a list of rapid-fire questions, like “How old are you? What’s your favorite food? What was your job before all this? Did you have a girlfriend? A wife? Kids? What’s your favorite sex position? Who’s your favorite cartoon character? When are you gonna kiss me?”

“Fuckkk,” he drawled, his face changing at that last question, the amused expression being replaced by a dark, aggressive look, as he suddenly laid her foot down and reached out for her face. He let his fingers drift down her jawbone and then back up to her lips, as he seemed to study her face with a quiet intensity. 

“Whenever you fuckin’ want me to, girl,” he said finally, and before he had finished talking, she was on him, her soft lips urgently pressing against his, her arms slipping around his neck, her body now snuggled in between his legs as she opened her mouth and let him in. She felt his tongue inside of her mouth, strong and needy and tasting of Daryl, and she moaned without meaning to, a small sound that seemed to touch something inside of him, because suddenly he was pulling back and looking down at her, holding her shoulders in his strong grasp. 

“Okay?” he asked, and she smiled and nodded, reaching up to kiss the corner of his mouth gently. 

He let out a slow breath, and then caught her chin in his hand, pulling her lips back up to his and he kissed her again, rough lips drawing her in, deeper this time, with urgent, lustful desire, as if he was unable to control himself, as if the answers to the universe were inside of her somewhere and he was trying to find them. His tongue was rough and overpowering, almost making it hard to breathe, but it was a heady, sensual feeling, like she was not just being tasted, but she was also being taken. Being claimed.

He pulled away and murmured, "Ya taste so fucking sweet."

She smiled. And just as she was about to wrap her legs around his lap and straddle him, she heard the tell-tale sound of Merle Dixon’s laugh ricocheting across the field behind them. 

“Baby brotha!” he called out good-naturedly, and Sara turned to see Merle, Rick and Shane approaching their location on the Fairleighs’ front yard. 

“Speak of the devil,” muttered Daryl, and Sara noticed that his face looked angry and impatient again, and she wondered what exactly happened at the Greene farm house last night. 

“You okay?” she asked Daryl.

He looked down at her in surprise, as if he hadn’t realized she could gauge his emotional state so easily. 

“Yeah, girl,” he said, pulling her arms off him gently, and starting to rise. “My brother’s always had shit timing.” 

She smiled. Maybe so, but today was shaping up to be a damn good day.


	14. Bad Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for sexual assault.

As it turned out, Sara was dead wrong about her good day. It was evident from Rick’s face as soon as he came walking up to them that something was wrong. 

“Is Beth okay?” she gasped quickly, worried that Daryl had underestimated how hurt her friend had been.

Rick seemed confused and then said, “What? She’s fine. Glad you’re okay, honey,” and before Sara could feel overwhelmed by that touching display of sentiment for her near-death experience, Rick launched into a horrible story about how the old cowshed had partially caught on fire during the night. 

“You mean the barn where we keep our supplies?” demanded Daryl, his face instantly as serious as Rick’s. 

Sara, who didn’t have a very good inkling of exactly what went on with their supply situation, was a bit lost, but she could tell from Daryl’s sudden change in mood that this was very bad news. She looked up at Merle, and he gave her an encouraging shoulder rub.

“Shit, girl, thought we lost ya,” he said, while Rick and Daryl walked over by the RV and continued to talk talking in low, heated tones. 

“What’s going on, Merle?” she said, turning her attention to Merle who was now leisurely smoking a cigarette beside her. “What’s Rick saying?” 

“Some of the hay caught on fire last night. Took over half the barn. ” he said. “Lost a lot of food and nearly all the water we had. Wasted it all putting the blaze out. Didn’t have no choice though. Had to get the flames out before it drew any walkers.” 

“Yeah, but we can get more right?” asked Sara, a little naively. 

Shane took this opportunity to bite out a sarcastic reply. “Yeah, we’ll just head on over to the local Piggly-Wiggly.” 

Merle gave Shane the finger. “It’s fine, sugar,” he said. “We just need to go on a run, and fast. See what we can scavenge up before the winter comes in.” 

Sara’s stomach dropped a little. That means Daryl is leaving, she thought. She looked over to where he was standing by Rick and found that he was staring at her, his face unreadable but tense. 

Watching her worried gaze, Merle smiled a little. “Shit, girl, we’ll be fine. Ain’t nothing in this big, bad world that ole Merle can’t handle.” 

“Can I go too?” she asked suddenly, making Merle’s eyebrows jump up and Shane nearly choke on the water bottle he was chugging. 

Suddenly Daryl and Rick were back beside them, both of them saying “No,” nearly at the same time. 

“No way,” added Daryl, “Don’t even think about it.” 

“Gonna go fix the RV,” said Rick. “C’mon Shane, need this thing up and running.” 

The deputy obeyed, but not before giving another smart-ass smirk to Daryl and Sara. For his part, Merle sidled away, muttering something about heeding the call of nature. 

Now alone again, but this time under much different circumstances than just minutes earlier, Sara found her voice shaking and angry as she demanded, “Why not!? Why can’t I go?” 

Daryl shook his head. “Ya serious, right now? We just went OVER the fact that ya barely even spent any time outdoors, not to mention having absolutely NO survival skills to speak of, and ya think I am really gonna sign off on this? Fuck no!” 

Sara’s eyes stung. She knew she was being a bit unreasonable, but that didn’t matter. There was no way she was going to go back to the farm and stew for weeks on end, not knowing if he was okay or if he was hurt or if he…if he had simply decided not to come back. Because, try as she might to hide this part of herself, she was desperately afraid of being left. Of being rejected. Blame it on years in the business, on years of being home alone all night while her mom was about schmoozing, on years of being told she wasn’t thin enough, pretty enough, talented enough. Blame it on whatever, but the fact remained: Sara Malone did not like feeling abandoned. Feeling put to the side. 

Especially not after he had finally kissed her, finally showed that he might, might, might have some interest in her, might see something worthwhile in her. 

And now he was saying just the opposite, that he was going to go away and leave her alone. Leave her alone with a bunch of people like Andrea and Lori who didn’t even LIKE her. No, thank you, she thought, no way. 

“I’m going. You can’t stop me!” she said, petulantly, stomping her foot like a child. “You think just cause I’m a woman I can’t protect myself?” 

He scoffed at that, crossing his large arms and glowering down at her. “Nah. I think Andrea would be just fine out there. Maggie too. Maybe even Lori. She at least knows guns. But you? Duchess, a declawed cat would have a better chance of surviving out there than you would.” 

Sara felt her face crumple. She wasn’t expecting Daryl to go immediately back to his contemptuous attitude just because she was angry with him. 

“Shit,” he said remorsefully, reaching out to her and pulling her stiff body into his for a hug. “Didn’t mean it how it sounded….just meant, hell, girl, I’m trying to look out for you. Don’t want you to get hurt.” 

“Yeah, but you’ll be there,” she pointed out, looking up at him with wholly trusting eyes. “You’ll keep me safe.” 

Sara saw a hint of masculine pride playing in his eyes. But then they quickly shadowed. 

“Nah, too many things could go wrong,” he said, releasing her from his grasp. “Ain’t risking it, not for nothing. You staying put at the farm, indoors, where it’s safe. Period.” 

A course of rage and hurt shot through Sara’s veins. She was sick of being weak, sick of being treated like a china doll. The comparison to Andrea and Maggie really wounded her. For a second, she had the urge to throw a Hollywood diva tantrum, but that wasn’t her style. Instead, she went full ice queen, haughtily titling her chin and saying, “Whatever.” 

And then, she stalked over to where Shane Walsh was working on the RV and pretended to be wildly engrossed in what he was doing. 

“Broads, amirite?” sighed Merle, walking up and giving his brother a firm slap on the back. Daryl harrumphed, and chewed on his bottom lip, a torn, confused expression on his face. 

***

Two Weeks Later 

Sara was prone on the Greene porch swing, half-reading the fifth entry in Beth’s Anne of Green Gables series and half-watching the sunset as it faded into the horizon. She was bored, bored, bored and while she tried to pretend it was because she was tired of farm chores and nightly board games, it was really because the men (and namely, Daryl) had been gone for weeks now. 

She couldn’t lie to herself. She had behaved very badly when Daryl said she couldn’t on the run. After they got the RV on the road, Sara continued icing him out, and when they got to the farm, she ran up to her bedroom to cry alone. 

It was childish, that she knew. Dr. Kasey always said she had a very childish side, said it was because she never had a chance to have a real childhood, what with Jackie being what she was, and the pressure to make it as a star, and the fame and all of it after that. Or maybe it was because she was used to getting whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it. To put it simply, she wasn’t used to hearing the word no, especially not from a man. 

She was embarrassed of how she was behaving, but she felt like she couldn’t help herself. She felt small and rejected and terrified, but instead of telling Daryl that, she chose to just act sulky. When Daryl had approached her to say goodbye the next day, she pretended like she didn’t give a shit he was leaving. Tossed him a wave and shoulder shrug like she hadn’t been crying half the night, trying to be as quiet as she could so Beth wouldn’t hear. 

Her coldness was a surprise, she could tell. His expression was alight with anger and hurt but also confusion, like he couldn’t make sense of her reaction. In the end, he had stalked off, leaving her sitting alone near the firepit while the rest of the group hugged and kissed farewell. She heard a noise behind her, and turned hoping it was Daryl again, but it was Merle. 

He gave her a big tight bear-hug that almost lifted her off the ground, and he whispered in her ear, “Be good, little girl.” 

She smiled weakly at that, hurt and fear welling up inside of her like a tidal wave. He started to walk away but her voice stopped him. 

“Merle!” she had called out. 

He spun around, head half-turned. 

“Merle.” 

He waited. 

“I- I – Daryl- he- I wanted to say…to him…Can you tell him—" 

Understanding dawned on Merle’s face, and a touch of a smirk. He came back and gave her another tight bear hug. 

“He’s coming back in a few weeks, girl, shit,” he laughed. “You can tell him yourself then.”

“Will he?” she wondered aloud, fear gripping her belly. 

“Listen, it takes a helluva lot to kill a Dixon,” He said, patting her cheek affectionately. “Though if you ever want to upgrade to the next edition, I am right here.”

She laughed at that, and pushed him off good-naturedly. He had made her feel better in that moment, at least a little. 

But that was weeks ago. And his words felt like cold comfort now…now that boredom had sunk deep into her bones and she felt like her life was passing her by while she just sat and watched. 

Although, if she knew what was coming for her that night, she would have been wise enough to realize that boredom was a friend.

That Night 

Andrea was on watch outside the farm-house when the intruders first arrived. The rest of them had been inside, cleaning up after dinner and getting ready for bed, when they heard the shots. Everyone’s body froze in place, even the children smart enough to stop playing immediately and look to the door. 

“What was that?” hissed Maggie, grabbing for her gun and running to the window. Beth cowered beside her father, who looked grim but fierce. 

“Hand me my shotgun please, Miss Lori,” was all he said, but Sara knew what he was thinking. He was an elderly man here alone with a house full of women and children. Her legs started to quake underneath her. Dear God, is this it? Is this the night I die? She thought desperately. 

“Maybe it’s Rick and the others?” Carol offered lamely, but everyone knew that their men would never ring out a shot like that so close to the house without good reason. Not when there were quieter ways to kill a walker. Not when Daryl had his bow…Sara thought about Daryl and clenched her eyes closed, twisting her chain in her fingers. 

“Take Sara and Beth and the children and go down to the cellar, now,” ordered Herschel to Carol. “Don’t come out unless we come for you.” 

“What!” gasped Sara. “No, I won’t. Let me stay and help. I’m not a child, I can help.” 

Beth shot her a look like “Girl, are you nuts?” as, Carol started ushering her, Carl and Sophia to the basement door. 

Lori chided her, “You should go down, Sara.”

But before Sara could argue, they all heard Maggie gasp at the window and then…the footsteps. 

“There’s four of them,” Maggie said flatly. “They got a gun to her head.” 

So, it’s not walkers, thought Sara. It’s men. Living men. Even worse. 

The rap on the door was slow, echoing, ominous. 

“I best go let them in,” said Herschel. “Now, girls, everyone stay calm. I want this to end without bloodshed on either side.”

Sara stood shakily as the farmer opened his front door to a wide-eyed Andrea, who was being grasped around the neck by a large man in a baseball cap. 

“Herschel---it’s okay, I’m okay,” she groaned, though her bloodied face said otherwise, as the man forced his way through the narrow doorway and into the Greene’s parlor. 

Three other men crowded behind him, guns drawn, and sizing up the joint and looking around like they had won the lottery.

“Weapons down, now,” demanded the man holding Andrea. “Or I blow this sweet lady’s brains out.”

Maggie complied slowly, hate rolling off her body in waves, and Herschel let his shotgun be ripped from his hands. 

“My, my, my myyyy,” drawled the man Sara assumed to be the leader, the man who now dumped Andrea on the ground like a ton of bricks. “What have we here? Just LOOK at all these beautiful women. What are you, man, some kind of Mormon? All these wives?” 

Herschel flushed an angry red at that, but raised his hands gently. It reminded Sara of a picture she had seen of Moses in the Bible. “Fellas, fellas, please. We welcome you to enjoy dinner and partake of what you need, but---

“Oh, I will be doing a lot of partaking, that is for sure,” said one of the younger men, who now stepped forward and licked his lips as he looked Sara up and down. She bit down on her lower lip so hard she tasted blood. 

“Fellas, again, please, we have a wonderful dinner…we just finished…but we have more, much more and we can share, but I must ask you to be respectful—

“SHUT UP, old man, before I put a bullet in you,” hissed the leader, and at this Maggie let out a strangled sob as she reached out to grab her father protectively. 

What happened next was a blur for Sara. She remembered being pushed to the ground and having her wrists tied. She remembered the gun so close to head she could see the grooves and scratches on the handle. She remembered wondering if the kids would be safe, remembered hearing the house being tossed as the men tore into everything looking for things they could steal. 

She remembered being picked up by one of them, carried to the next room. Remembered feeling sick and nauseous and throwing up her dinner when he started taking her shirt off, remembered hoping that would make him stop. It didn’t. 

She remembered the smell of it, her regurgitated dinner mixed with the men’s sweat, because there was more than one now, one doing the touching while the other watched, rubbing his crotch hungrily. She fought ferociously, tear-blind and wild with rage and all that got her was the burning-hot pain radiating like knives up her right arm as the man wrenched it behind her with such ferocity that she heard it snap. Even through the pain she felt her jeans being pulled down to her ankles, and this time, this time she really screamed, screamed for Daryl, screamed for God, screamed for Daryl, Daryl, Daryl, screamed like the sky would break, like it oughta shatter in half, and then – 

The dark.


	15. Broken Morning

When Sara woke up, she had no idea where she was. Her head was throbbing and spinning so badly she knew she must have been really drunk last night. But where did she go? Was she with Emma and Harry? She needed her phone, where’s her phone. Eyes peeling open wider, she looked around and came back to reality with a thud. This wasn’t a hangover. This wasn’t L.A. She wasn’t safe. This was the Greene farm house, this was the end of the world. 

She remembered pieces of the night before and then just as she was about to scream, a warm voice beside her said gently, “Honey, lay still. You have a bad concussion.”

“Carol? Carol? Are the kids—is everyone okay?” she bit out slowly, almost afraid to ask, as she looked the smiling woman up and down for signs of a struggle. 

“Everyone’s okay, honey. We’re safe. You’re safe. But you need to rest.” 

“But those men—”

“They’re dead,” said the woman, venom in her voice. “We’re safe.”

“But how?”

“Lay down now,” said Carol, and sleep came like a curtain that blacked out everything but the pain. 

***

“She was screaming for Daryl the whole time,” Maggie said, rubbing her hands across her face as if trying to erase something from her skin. 

“It scared me so bad, her screaming,” said Beth, leaning into her sister’s shoulder. “I’ll never forget it.” 

They were all gathered on the Greene porch, all except the kids who were sleeping with Lori in Maggie’s bedroom. 

“Thank god for you, Andrea,” said Carol, smiling in awe at the blonde. “They could have raped her. Could have…killed us all.” 

Somewhere in Sara’s torture, the petite blonde had managed to free herself of her restraints. With the men distracted by Sara’s screams and trying to silence her (finally, knocking her out with a pistol blow to the forehead), Andrea had been able to get Herschel’s shotgun and loosen Maggie’s binds as well. No one could believe their luck, that they had been able to overpower the men and kill them before they raped Sara, before they did that and worse to the rest of them. 

But, despite all this, the group wasn’t relaxed or pleased. No one was smiling, not even the children when they got up later that day. It was as if a shadow had fallen, as if they were finally realizing that their farmhouse wasn’t an idyllic respite from the rest of the world, but just a leaking liferaft in the middle of the open ocean. 

And, when Rick and the rest came home two days later, expecting to see smiles and cheers, they found nothing but grim, strained face and a terror that was too big to fit inside the farmhouse. 

***  
Carol was the one who had pulled Daryl aside when Andrea and Lori were explaining what happened to the others. 

She clucked her tongue and motioned for him to follow, which he did without question, his eyes already more black than blue as he looked around and saw Sara was nowhere in sight. 

“She dead?” he demanded, before Carol had rounded the corner, causing her to gasp and clutch her palm to her mouth.

“Dear God, no, honey,” she said, rubbing his arm with a tender expression on her face. “Poor honey, no.” 

Daryl Dixon wasn’t used to being called poor honey, but that didn’t mean shit right now. “Tell me,” he said, his voice hard and stoic. 

And so Carol had, not wasting any words and talking as fast as she could in order to keep him from losing patience with her. 

“She’s got a real bad concussion and a broken arm, but she’s doing better, much better today than she has been since it happened,” said Carol. “She’s a tough cookie, I tell you that. Doesn’t complain and still helps read to the kids so I can get my chores done.” 

The fuck anyone cares about chores right now, Daryl had a mind to say, but instead he just flatly inquired, “You sure they didn’t rape her?” 

Carol reddened. “Yes…I mean, I am sure…they did…they did try, but no, thank the Lord, no, she’s..okay.” 

Daryl glowered at her for that remark, “Yes she sounds just fuckin’ dandy, Carol.” 

Carol shifted her weight back and forth, and then said what she came to say to begin with.

“She called for you the whole time, honey. When it hap—happened…and then after, when we had to set her arm and her head was all out of sorts. She was in and out for a while, didn’t seem to know whether she was here or Hollywood or God knows where.” 

Daryl looked blankly at her, as if she was speaking in a foreign tongue. 

“Well, come on then,” said Carol sweetly, reaching out a hand for his. “I can take you to see her, I know she’s been waiting on you guys to come back.” 

Daryl grasped his bow so tight his knuckles went white, and he stepped back towards the wallpapered foyer behind him. 

“Don’t think..don’t think that’s a good idea right now,” he said, “I ain’t…I ain’t know what to say.” 

Carol frowned in confusion. “You don’t have to say anything special, honey. Just, just being there is good.”

Daryl looked down at the kind woman’s face, and maybe just maybe he would have listened, if not for the fact that Herschel’s wife had hung a large, oval mirror just near the front door in the foyer. In it, Daryl saw himself clearly—his filthy blue jeans, his tired face streaked with dirt, his hands so black they looked like coal. Even under the grime, Daryl knew there was dirt on him that wouldn’t wash away, a legacy of trash handed down to him that was visible to even the most casual observer. 

Knowing that Sara had called for him made it all the more worse. He was good at one thing in this world, surviving, and he had a mind that Sara was drawn to that, that she liked that quality about him. He was like a junkyard dog and she a trembling kitten hoping to stand near him for protection. That had to be it. Had to be what she saw in him.

Well, he would take that over nothing, take it any day if he could help keep her warm and living. But he had so far failed miserably in that regard. Left her here alone at the farmhouse without even saying goodbye, left her here even after she had begged and pleaded to come with him, with those big sad gray eyes looking up at him hopefully. And what had he done? Told her ‘no’ flat-out, left her here alone and scared, left her to get…attacked by those men. 

He felt more than just guilty. He felt like a failure as a man. Because of him and his stupidity, Sara went through the nightmare of her life. Nearly died. Because of him. 

Because he wasn’t good for nothing. 

And then, underneath the shame, there was something else. The fear that Sara seemed to like him a little bit right now, even if it was just as a guard dog, but that if he went up there now, if he were to let him see more and more of him, she would see him for what he really was. Trash. Dumb. Dirty. Broken.

No, he would rather build a million layers of brick between them before he ever let her get close enough to see his ugliness. 

But, still, the thought of her alone in her bedroom, that wasn’t okay with him either. So he did the only thing he could think to do. He left Carol standing there in confusion and he went out to find his big brother. 

***

Merle still didn’t understand why Daryl refused to go see his girl himself, or why it made him so mad that Merle kept calling her that. Wasn’t it painfully obvious that baby bro had finally gone and caught real feelings for a woman, and this one a Hollywood star at that? Hell, he had been acting like a lovesick puppy the whole time they were on the supply run, nearly coming to blows with Shane when he said he would love to see if she was a natural redhead. 

But Daryl had insisted that Merle go up to her instead, and that he then come right back and report everything to him. 

“Ya acting like ya in short pants ‘stead of a grown man,” Merle had complained, but he had obliged, cause after all, he did want to see her for hisself. Nothing made him madder than the thought of a man putting his hand on a woman. Had to see it enough in his house growing up, damn near made him sick hearing about it happening to his own woman and the little scream queen. 

When Merle entered Beth’s bedroom, he expected to see Sara tucked up in bed, but instead, she was curled like a cat on the window ledge, a loose gray cardigan wrapped around her as she looked down at the yard below. 

“Hiya, sugartits,” he said, in a booming voice that almost made her fall off the window it startled her so badly. 

“Shit, shit, sorry,” he said, quieter, moving quickly to grab her broken arm gently and hold her steady. 

“WheresDaryl?” she asked, one big word with no spaces, grabbing onto his hand with her good one, eyes quickly ticking back and forth his face. 

“He’s okay, honey,” said Merle, reassuringly. Shit. This girl really had a thing for Darleena. “Unpacking the trucks out back. We had an awesome run.”  
Then, he wanted to eat his words.

“I guess…it wasn’t so awesome here,” he murmured, lightly stroking the large bandage on her forehead. 

She froze a little at his touch, and grabbed his hand in hers. On impulse, she pulled his large paw close to her soft cheek and rubbed it back and forth, like she was a cat leaving a scent. 

“Glad you got back safe, Merle.” 

“Hey, I told ya it aint easy to kill a Dixon,” he said, trying to keep the mood light and pretending not to notice the haunted eeriness in her gray eyes and the way she kept looking to the bedroom door behind him as if expecting to see someone. 

He licked his lips, abruptly feeling his mouth going dry. 

“Girl, I gotta ask—

She looked back at the yard. And then said coldly, “They didn’t rape me, Merle. Thanks to Andrea.” 

Merle’s chest puffed a little with pride at that, but he couldn’t let it go just like that. 

“Then, what…did they do?” 

Her head swiveled back around so fast that her red hair flew in the air. 

“Well, Merle,” she snapped, in a voice that was colder than he ever heard from her. “They ripped off my clothes and held me down in Maggie’s bed while I screamed my stupid head off. But don’t worry, no DNA was left behind at the scene. Oh, unless you count bite mark evidence, since one of them apparently bit my fucking tit. Or maybe that was Carol while I was knocked out, what do you think? She a tit woman?” 

Merle looked guiltily down at the pink carpet, feeling like the world’s biggest jackass. He couldn’t remember a time he had felt so ashamed, except maybe when his favorite second grade teacher (only teacher he ever liked, really) caught him stealing the milk money and gave him a look so disappointed it almost broke his heart. 

He was about to look up and apologize when he felt an arm snake around his waist as Sara grabbed him in a tight embrace. 

“I-i-i-“ she said, but Merle just hushed her, and rubbed his big hands up and down her shaking back. Then finally, for the first time in days, Sara cried. She buried her face in Merle’s dirty wifebeater and just let tears roll down her face, while he held her against his solid chest and tenderly kissed the top of her head. 

“You jus’ cry it out, honey,” he said lowly. “Give it to ole Merle. I can take it.” 

She did, and he did, for how long he couldn’t say, but long enough that his lower back started to ache and that the sun set and that the front of his shirt felt warm and wet from her tears. 

When she finally pulled away, her face was puffy and exhausted, and she let him help her into her bed, let him pull the covers up to her neck, and she almost, almost let him walk right out the door without asking the question he dreaded most, but in the end, she got up the nerve and whispered it as his hand was on the doorknob. 

“Merle?” 

He paused, and turned to face her, her red hair glowing on the white pillowcase like a mermaid’s. “Yes, honey?” 

“Why—why—won’t Daryl come?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Merle hushed her. “Just rest now.”

She opened her mouth as if to argue, but he could see that weariness was overtaking her, and instead she laid deeper into the pillow. 

“Okay…Goodnight, sugardick,” she said, nearly knocking him off his ass and leaving him laughing loudly as he walked down the hallway.


	16. Shane's Story

Sara spent the next five days completely isolated in Beth’s bedroom. Before the men had come back, she had been moving around the house some, but now she found herself needing space and privacy like never before. So, she took to bed, and if anyone felt it was lazy or undue, they didn’t say so to her face.

People came to see her all the time of course, Rick and Lori, and Glenn and Maggie and Carol and the kids. They brought her food and flowers from the garden and generally treated her like fine china. She knew they all talked about what happened that night, about how they found her naked and unconscious and how Andrea saved her from a horrible fate. It made her feel hollow and bare to consider them picturing her like that, talking about what happened to her and wondering about her like she was a specimen in a lab instead of the same Sara they knew before. 

But, if Sara was being honest with herself, which she tried not to be, she was in bed because she was waiting to see if Daryl would come for her. It was a standoff of sorts, her waiting to see if he cared enough about her to come look in on her, her torturing herself by refusing to get out of bed and find him herself. 

And then, one night, Shane had come to her room, ostensibly to bring her soup, but really to sit on her bed and watch her like an eagle watches a mouse.

He had brought it up on his own, mentioning how he never saw Daryl come up to her room. She had froze at the mention of his name, her hand hovering halfway to her mouth, soup dangerously close to spilling on Beth’s flowered bedspread. 

“I saw that a lot on my days at the force,” he said next, casually as if he was speaking about the weather. 

“Saw what?” asked Sara, not wanting to prolong Shane’s stay in her room, but eager to talk to someone, anyone about why Daryl hadn’t so much as said ‘hi’ to her since coming back home. 

“Oh, just, you know…” Shane breathed. “Sorry, this is awkward.” 

“What?” Sara demanded, her soup spoon clattering in the bowl, leaning forward in the bed as if trying to drag the words out of his mouth with the energy of her body. 

“SA cases,” he said, clearing his throat. “Sexual assault cases, I mean. I worked a few of them, and each time, saw the vic’s relationship break up on account of it.” 

Sara said nothing now, but her face was pale and strained as Shane kept blubbering on. 

“I mean, some guys can’t take that kinda thing…the damaged goods bit. Like, it hurts their male ego. Stupid, if you ask me. Heartless, even.” 

“Heartless,” echoed Sara. 

“Yeah,” Shane nodded violently. “Now, not saying you was in a relationship with that redneck, you’re way too gorgeous for that dickhead…but shit, yea…seems like it tainted his image of ya or something. Fucking men, right?” 

“He—he said that?” asked Sara, feeling like her blood was draining to her feet. 

“Everything okay in here?” asked Maggie, peeking her head into the room. “Want some crackers or something for that soup, girl? Might make it taste a little better…  
squirrel ain’t exactly a fine texture for soup.”

She shook her head quickly, and motioned for Shane to take the bowl. “No, no, Mags…I feel a little dizzy. Think I’m gonna close my eyes.” 

“Need to stay and keep watch of ya?” asked Shane, leaning down and stroking a strand of hair out of her face. 

“No, no,” she said rapidly. “I’m good. I’m good.”

“You heard her, let’s go,” sassed Maggie, crossing her arms and giving Shane a knowing look. “Move it, buster.” 

Sara waited all of 2.4 seconds after the door shut and the pair left her alone before bursting into tears. 

Fucking men, indeed. 

***

“You know, you don’t have to take watch tonight,” said Rick, slapping Daryl on the back with a friendly squeeze. “Someone else oughta take a turn. You’re not a machine, man.” 

Daryl shrugged wordlessly, and arranged himself in his usual position on the porch. The tents and sleeping bags had been packed away, as ever since the night of the attack, all of the survivors had been welcomed into the Greene farm house. It made for tight quarters, but with winter coming and Lori and Carol so worried for the kids after the intruders, it only made sense to Herschel. 

So, now, when Daryl sat up on the porch every night he did so alone, the yard empty and the rest of the survivors tucked in bed inside. It was his favorite time of day by far, the only time he didn’t feel like he was a bomb about to explode on the next person who touched him or looked at him wrong.

It wasn’t just the solitude and the cold, black sky he craved. He felt like it was the only useful thing he could do, the only way he could serve the bandaged girl in bed upstairs. He couldn’t bring himself to go to her, to hold her like he wanted to, to comfort her when she cried out in her sleep, to be a normal human male instead of a broken man from a long line of broken men. But at least, at least he could do this. Stay up all night and make sure nothing like that ever happened to her again. 

Of course, in all honesty, he had come up to see her. A number of times, in fact. Thank God little Beth Greene had been a willing co-conspirator in those missions, always finding ways to let him know when she was napping, when the rest of the family was busy in other parts of the house, when it was safe for him to nudge the door open and watch her sleeping form. 

Felt like a fool for doing it. A peeping Tom or something pathetic. But the first time it had been a necessity, he had to see how bad off she was, couldn’t trust Merle’s assurance that she would been fine in a few weeks. 

And, after that, after that first time seeing her sleeping fitfully in bed, a large blue cast laying across her bare belly, her shirt twisted up underneath her as she moved unhappily in her sleep, after that, it wasn’t enough. He had keep seeing her. Keep checking on her. Keep making sure her chest was still rising and falling. And it was, of course. She was healthy and strong, but still…the violence it would have taken to break her skinny little arm…to leave her head a mess of black and blue…it all but robbed him of any peace that he felt from seeing her soft, sleeping self. 

So, he stayed on the porch all night. Drinking instant coffee, smoking cigarettes, watching the yard and the trees and pacing around the property when he had a mind to or when he heard a noise. And if he lingered under her window most hours, the only one who would have been wiser would have been whoever found a pile of crushed Camels on the leafy ground there someday. 

***

“Daryl thinks I’m damaged goods,” said Sara, an out-of-nowhere proclamation that made Andrea almost cough into her orange juice. 

“Huh?” she sputtered, her eyes wider than normal as she looked across at her friend in the bed. 

Because the pair of them had become friends, had found a companionable peace rise up between them ever since the night of the intruders. Sara had been so grateful to Andrea, and so sweetly miserable after what happened, that the blonde could no longer resent her (and yes, she can admit, it was resentment before, and a bit of jealousy, what with Merle always treating her like his little doll). Instead, she found herself looking at Sara like a little sister, not that anyone could ever take Amy’s place in that regard of course, but she had missed having someone to look after like that, someone to give advice to and share secrets with and grow beside. 

And, for her part, Sara warmed to the new affection coming from Andrea like a cat in a patch of sun, rolling over on her back and showing her belly almost instantly. Maybe it was because Andrea was so strong and brave, two things Sara decidedly felt she was not, maybe it was because she was hurting and needy and looking for any kindness she could get. 

And now she had decided to come clean to Andrea about what Shane had told her, to share the secret that had been breaking her heart for the last few days. 

“Come again, chica?” asked Andrea, giving a playful slap to Sara’s good arm. “Where did you get that ridiculous idea from?” 

Sara smiled sadly and kept filing her nails. Herschel had just given a hefty painkiller for the gnarly headache she had been battling all night, so she was feeling loose and numb and ready to talk. 

“Because,” she said simply. “Shane told me.”

“SHANE told you?” sputtered Andrea, rolling her eyes in disgust. “He’s out of his marbles lately. And Daryl doesn’t exactly talk to him, ya know.” 

Sara shrugged. “Shane says he saw it all the time on the force. That a victim’s boyfriend or husband would leave them after the assault. Not right away…probably. He didn’t say. I don’t know. But eventually he made it seem. He said it hurts a male’s ego.” 

“That’s the stupidest thing to say someone in your position,” said Andrea. “He needs his ass kicked.” 

“Maybe so,” said Sara, reaching for the pink nail polish next to her leg. “But at least now I know. I just needed…needed to know. Why he…Why Daryl wouldn’t…”

Andrea clucked her tongue and threw down the magazine she had been reading. “Forget those assholes,” she said, “Men are pigs, trust me.” 

“What about Merle?” asked Sara knowingly. 

“Yeah, like I said, pigs,” she laughed. “But sometimes, a girl needs to get in the pigpen and have some fun.” 

At this the two broke into a fit of giggles, and Andrea deftly changed the subject the next chance she got. 

But anyone who knew Andrea for more than just a handful of weeks would have known that would not be the end of it. Sara might have assumed Andrea lived by “girl code” and kept secrets, but Andrea had always been told she had a big mouth. A big mouth she put directly to use as soon as Sara drifted off after her latest pain pill dose. 

“Hey, Shane,” she said, swaggering across the yard to the firepit, where he was stood with Rick and Carl, learning to smoke deer meat from Merle and Daryl. 

Shane barely looked up, already annoyed at Andrea’s voice without even knowing what she had to say. Ever since the night she rescued the other women, he felt she was being insufferably full of herself. 

“I said, hey SHANE!” She yelled, and this time he looked up at her from under his POLICE hat.

“What, Andrea?” he said. “Little busy here.” 

“Oh, yeah? I was too,” she said. “Busy sitting up there with Sara.” 

She pointed up at Sara’s window as if to emphasize the point. Daryl dropped the venison in his hand so fast it splattered hot oil on his hands, and he let out a hiss. 

“Your point?” Shane asked. “You want an award for finally playing nice or something?” 

“No,” she said stiffly, moving just inches away from him and poking him hard in the chest. “But don’t let me EVER hear about you bein’ up there telling her horrible stuff about your time in the sexual assault squad again.” 

“Carl, go in the house,” ordered Rick. 

“But-Dad-

“Now, son,” said Rick, putting his hand up and trying to push his way between the angry blonde and his partner. 

“What’s she talking about?” rasped Daryl, turning to Andrea. “What’s he been saying to Sara?” 

Shane pushed Andrea’s fingers off his chest. “Back off, baby,” he said, and in an instant Merle had in a headlock, pulling him down to the ground so that he fell on his back and had Shane pinned on top of him. 

“Get offa him!” ordered Rick, pulling his arm from around Shane’s neck, while Daryl in turn squared off to Rick in an instant, but then dropping his fists as if he suddenly thought better of it. 

“Nah, I wanna hear this,” said Daryl. “Let ‘im go, Merle.” 

“You hear him disresepctin’ my woman?” said Merle, and then Shane got enough leverage with his legs to roll over on the ground, so that the two were now side by side and rassling on the ground like overgrown frat boys. 

Andrea grabbed Daryl’s arm, ignoring Merle’s tussle. “He told her that YOU said she’s damaged goods now. That men don’t want to be with women like that, that he saw it happen all the time when he worked with victims on the force.” 

Daryl clenched his hands into fists. 

“You said all that? You said all that to her?” and now Daryl was on top of Shane’s legs, fixing to drop his fist in his face while Rick and Andrea tugged at him. 

“Jus-Just go to her, damn it, you idiot,” said Andrea.

Daryl’s rage-split face looked uncertain for a moment, searching in her eyes before finally coming to a stand and looking conflicted down at Merle. 

“Go on baby brotha, I got this pig just fine,” said Merle, blood and sweat and dirt smeared across his face. 

“You ain’t got shit,” bitched Shane, elbowing him hard in the belly, while Rick and Andrea pulled the two apart. 

“Let him go, Merle! Damn it, let him go!” she said, grasping onto his arms for dear life and straddling him to keep him locked on the dirty ground. 

“Oooh, baby, you’re getting me hot and bothered, now,” said Merle, licking a tongue across his teeth as he gazed up at his pissed-off girlfriend. 

“You really said all that?” Rick asked Shane in a low tone. “We never worked SA cases.”

Shane shrugged. “She got some of the story wrong. Her head injury, ya know, must have made her confused.”

“Uh-huh,” said Rick doubtfully, running his sweaty hands up and down his pant legs. 

Shane shrugged again, then tucked his head to the ground and walked off towards the barn. “She’s confused,” he called out. “A CONFUSED girl, ladies and gents!” 

“You know, he’s losing it, right, Rick?” asked Merle, standing up and letting Andrea fuss over him as she examined his belly under his shirt. 

Rick’s face blanched just a little. “Nah, he’s fine," he insisted, and then he added in a low tone, so no one else could hear:

"He better be."


	17. Scars

Sara was sleeping on her belly, resting on top of the pink comforter, a light gray throw half-covering her sleek legs. The rest of her was uncovered, her round ass barely contained in Beth’s cheerleading shorts, her long red hair loose across her back and just tickling the few inches of bare tan skin that was peeking out from her white tank top. 

Daryl took in the scene from the doorway before moving quietly into the bedroom, his breath coming so hard and fast that it sounded like a freight train to his ears. He couldn’t see her face from this angle, and he wanted—no, needed—to see her face. 

He carefully stepped across the teen girl’s bedroom until he was on Sara’s side of the bed, and then he lowered himself onto his haunches so that that he was face to face with the sleeping woman. 

Part of her hair was strung across her lightly freckled face, and he had the urge to move it aside so he could see her face unobstructed, but instead he lowered his hands to his lap. He had never seen her so up close, at least not in the afternoon light, not when she was still and silent and he could watch her to his heart’s content, could drink her in like a thirsty man finally coming to a clean running stream in the woods. 

She looked like one them Disney princesses, her soft skin almost translucent glass, her long dark lashes spread across her cheekbones, her arched brows giving her an elegant appearance even in sleep. Her lips were pressed together as if in thought, and Daryl noticed for the first time (and how did he never notice this before?) that her lower lip had a hint of an indent in it, as if someone had lightly pressed their thumb there, leaving just the smallest valley on the plump pale pink skin. 

The only thing marring the vision of her was the dark bruising on her cheekbone, and the baseball-sized blue-yellow bruise on her temple. The sight of it made Daryl’s fingers itch, made a flight of speeding rage ignite inside his bloodstream. He never felt such bloodthirst before, such a need to hurt, a need to release this vicious, ripping emotion inside of him. 

And yet he did nothing, but wait patiently on his knees beside her bed, and he wanted to laugh suddenly, because now he really was that junkyard dog he imagined himself to be…posted loyally on the floor, watching her all warm and satin and vanilla, while his callused, dirty paws lay in his lap, his squinted blue eyes covering her like a blanket, his breathing still slightly ragged and rough as he watched over her devotedly.

***

Sara was in makeup having a layer of blood and gore applied to her face and upper chest. The makeup artist was working quickly, deftly, and the feather-light touches of the makeup brush made Sara’s skin tickle a little. 

She twisted a little in the chair, and the artist gave her an amused smile. “Sorry, Ms. Malone,” he said. 

She huffed a laugh in response, reaching for the iced vanilla latte her assistant was handing to her. 

“You have an interview with a reporter at Us Weekly at 3 p.m.,” said Gillian, looking at her smartphone. “It’s for that segment, ‘What’s in Your Bag?’ You should have your answers ready ahead of time, I wrote down some ideas for you—AmorePacific MoistureBound Lip Treatment, Red Vines, 

“Red Vines!” said Sara, taking a slurp of her coffee. “You know Kelly doesn’t let me eat processed foods.”

Kelly was Sara’s nutritionist, and she made it her mission in life to keep Sara under 125 pounds, which was no easy feat for the 5’7 star. 

“Yeah, but you gotta have something like that,” said Gillian. “Something to show you’re not anorexic—

Gillian’s voice trailed off and Sara looked up. Her assistant was gone. She looked up to the makeup assistant, but he was gone too. 

“Gillian?” she asked, and then she felt a large arm wrap around torso from behind the makeup chair. 

Sara gasped and looked up in the lighted mirror. It was the man who tried to rape her, except he was a walker now, his decaying jaw snapping, snapping, snapping right next to her neck as his hands reached down into her panties, his soft, tearing flesh rubbing her---

Sara screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed, throwing her body violently, wildly as she felt his corpse crawling on top of her—

Her eyes peeled open and warm sunlight filled her vision, but she was still being pinned, not against the walker, but against a hard, unyielding, hot surface. She twisted and twisted, still screaming, but then she heard it-- 

“Duchess, duchess,” a low drawl, “Gonna hurt yerself, gotta stop now. I got ya.” 

Sara gasped and rolled her head backwards so that she was looking at the solid surface behind her. It was Daryl—Daryl!—and he had her held down securely in his  
lap, one powerful arm holding down her kicking legs while the other was wrapped around her upper back and shoulders. 

“I got ya, I got ya, I got ya,” he repeated in a low, dark rumble, and Sara could feel his voice vibrating in his hard-as-stone chest as he spoke them. 

Her heart was still going a million miles a minute, her breath coming in shivering gasps. 

“He—he—

Daryl looked down at her, with searching blue eyes that seemed to radiate anger and pain. But she kept going. 

“Daryl, he—he touched me and I-I-I--

Daryl’s hold on her loosened, went light, as if he was newly aware of how tight he has holding her and how powerless she must feel in his arms. 

But Sara didn’t want that. Didn’t want his hold loose and light on her. She pushed herself up with her good arm and wrapped herself around his neck, moving so that she was straddling round him on the bed, her long limbs wrapped around him, her broken arm resting awkwardly across his upper back. 

Am I crazy? She thought for a second, but she didn’t care. She just nuzzled her face into his neck, smelling the sweat and dirt there, how he smelled like woods and smoke and…

She felt him groan in response to her sudden change of position, and his hands lay uncertainly by his sides. A flush covered her cheeks. 

Oh my God, thought Sara, talk about throwing yourself at a man. I’m taking that to a whole new level. Keeping her eyes down, she pulled herself out of his lap and laid back down on the bed, laying on Beth’s pillow so that her body wouldn’t encroach upon Daryl’s seated frame on her side of the bed. 

He looked down at his now empty lap, and then back at her, rubbing a hand down his face and then looking at her again. 

“Had a nightmare, ‘s all,” he said. “You were calling for me, so I tried to help, but--

Sara felt sick with embarrassment. She hid her face in her hands, wanting to sob but having too much pride to let herself. Pride, yeah, you really have pride, Sara, practically forcing yourself on this man who wants nothing to do with you. 

As if reading her thoughts, Daryl moved on the bed, so that he was facing her, his legs curled underneath him. She felt his big hands around her wrists and she almost gasped, but she kept her hands at her face. 

“Don’t, don’t—don’t do that…please,” he said, his voice sounding almost broken. “Don’t hide your face like that.” 

She let him tug her hands down but she closed her eyes, feeling tears rolling out of their own accord. 

“I’m sor-sorry,” she cried. “I’m so embarrassed.” 

His breath hitched in his throat loud enough for Sara to hear. 

“What for?” he demanded. “Not your fault you had a bad dream, ‘specially after what you went through...”

And his voice trailed off at that, as if he was afraid to say too much, afraid of saying the wrong thing.

“Not embarrassed of that,” she said, wanting to wipe the tears off her face but not wanting to move her hands from out of Daryl’s hold. 

“Cuz—cuz you think I don’t wanna be here, then?” he asked, his tone rough as sandpaper, and Sara’s eyes flew open. 

“Andrea told you!” she said, sitting up off the pillow in anger, deeply offended. 

Daryl flushed a little. He looked down at her hands in his, which looked comically small and white in his own large dirty ones. 

“She did,” he admitted, starting to rub one thick thumb up and down the inside of her left palm. “But weren’t none of it true.” 

“Shane?” Sara asked tonelessly. 

“Fucking liar,” snapped Daryl, his voice black with rage. “I wouldn’t never say those things—wouldn’t never THINK those things—bout any woman, least of all you. Least OF all, Sara. My god.” 

She laid back on the pillow, thinking in surprise that it was funny to hear him call her by her name. 

“Oh,” she said, shutting her eyes again. 

“Then why—why—why—why didn’t you come?” she breathed, afraid to look up at him, feeling her arm throb in her cast and wondering if Herschel had more pain meds for her. 

“Stupid,” he said, spitting out the word like a missile. “Was stupid. Just…didn’t…didn’t think you’d want me, not really. But I wanted to come…I did come. Just to see. Just to watch. But…I couldn’t see why, how…you would want me, all of me, here. Especially after I wouldn't let ya come with me. Made ya stay here on your own. Made you get hurt.” 

Sara opened her big gray eyes and pulled his hands up next to her chest, rolling over so that she was spooning his hands and forearms. He leaned forward at the movement, exhaling loudly as he felt her warm breasts through her thin tank, her heartbeat pounding loudly next to his hands. 

“Wow, that does sound pretty stupid, Daryl,” she said, and then she tilted her head down and lightly kissed his dirt-streaked knuckles. 

His eyes flashed and he let out a low groan. 

“I screamed for you,” she said, in a small fright-soaked tone, and he knew he wasn’t talking about just now, but that horrible night. “I screamed and screamed and screamed for you.” 

He looked guiltily down at the bedspread and bit his lip hard. 

As if sensing his emotion, she looked up at him and then kissed his fingers again, pulling his hands up and then rubbing her cheeks back and forth across them as if she was trying to inhale him through her skin.

“’S all my fault, duchess,” he said. “Won’t ever forgive myself, won’t ever—”

She interrupted him by lightly biting his thumb into her mouth. His eyebrows shot up. 

“Cut it out,” she said. “Wasn’t your fault at all. I just meant…if I screamed for you” (and again his jaw clenched), “It’s ‘cause I wanted you. YOU. Not Merle. No offense to Merle.”

He stared at her for a second. “Do that again,” he ordered.

She looked confused and then said “Oh,” and smiling mischievously she bit his thumb again, this time slower, and letting her tongue taste the pad of his thumb before she released it. 

“Please don’t…don’t go away again,” she whispered suddenly, her mischievous expression disappearing. 

“You ain’t even gotta say that,” he said, daring to take his thumb and let it lightly lay upon the valley on her lower lip. “Ain’t leaving you again...aint happening.”

“Daryl,” she said, happily this time, and squeezed his hands close to her chest again, pressing down on them like she was trying to smash them into herself. 

“Who’s ready for supper!?” called out a voice from the hallway, and Daryl almost jumped off the bed in shock. Sara burst out laughing at that, earning herself a quirked up lip from the hunter and a faux expression of annoyance. 

“Take me down?” she asked. “I think I oughta get outta bed now.” 

“Sure you’re strong enough?” he asked, raking his eyes up and down her body. 

“Yeah,” she said, sitting up and pulling her hair into a big, loose bun with the hair tie on her wrist. 

“I could bring ya something, if you want?” He asked, his voice still uncertain, reaching out to ghost his fingers along the bruise on her temple. “Looks so bad, girl,” he added, sadness soaking his voice. 

Her face went a little pale at that and she raised her good hand to her face self-consciously. 

“Ain’t what I meant,” he said, frowning deeply and pulling her hand back down to her lap. “Didn’t mean…I mean…You’re still…shit…Even when Rick first found ya, covered in mud and walker guts and god knows what all, still thought…still thought…you was the most beautiful fuckin’ thing.” 

She didn’t say anything, but she felt herself glowing from the inside out, felt like a Christmas tree, like candles burning in a window, clean and strong. Staring at Daryl happily, quietly, she saw him smile a little too, then tuck his head down to hide it. She thought she detected a hint of pride on his face, like he was happy he had said something to make her smile like that. 

“Does it hurt bad?” he asked, clearing his throat. 

She shook her head, then slowly tilted it a little from side to side. “Only—only a little. Like dizzy? And ache-y.”

“You oughta stay in bed then,” he said, looking pissed, which Sara was starting to realize was Daryl’s expression when he was actually worried about something. 

“You’re the one who looks exhausted, Daryl,” she said. “You…you look like you haven’t slept in days.” 

He shrugged as if that didn’t matter to him at all. “Just doin’ night watches, and then it’s hard to get sleep in the day with everyone caterwauling.”

“Where have you been sleeping?” she asked, knowing that the group had moved into the house after the intruders. She met his eyes and then looked down at the blanket, and started picking at the flower design with her fingers. She suddenly felt a little shy. She didn’t know why exactly, maybe it was just the thought of Daryl in bed, of wondering what he slept in (Did he take his shirt off? Did he take EVERYTHING off?), wondering how he looked when his face was relaxed and unguarded. 

“Laundry room,” he said. 

“Daryl!” she said, shocked, swatting his arm as if he had offended her. “Why the hell are you sleeping there?” 

He looked confused. “Why not? Didn’t want to share the living room with the Grimes’ family, and Carol and Sophia are in the sunroom…and then Merle and Andrea have the den, and Shane and Glenn take the dining room…” 

His voice trailed off as he saw Sara shake her head insistently.

“NO, Daryl, you’re not sleeping in the laundry room,” she said, crossing her arms, or at least as best she could with her cast.

“I don’t get it?” he asked, confused but also seemingly amused by her reaction. 

“You’re not a dog, Daryl,” she said, and his eyes widened. “You’re not gonna sleep in the laundry room, not after all you do for us.”

His face went redder than Sara ever saw, and he hummed a little into his hand as he wiped his jaw. “I don’t mind, duchess. Don’t matter to me where I sack out.” 

“Well, good then,” she said. “Because I want you to sleep here with me from now on.”

At that his mouth dropped open, and then after a beat of silence in which his eyes swam with an emotion that Sara couldn’t identify, he just shook his head with finality, his lips in a hard line. 

“Why not?” she demanded, and then realizing what he might be thinking, she flushed. “I mean, I understand if you don’t want to…”

He stopped her sentence by grabbing her by the wrist, his grasp firm and insistent. 

“No place I’d rather be,” he said. “But, the others…Herschel, he wouldn’t want me in a room with his little girl, and I can’t blame him for that.” 

Sara shook her head. “Beth’s been sleeping with Maggie. I was keeping her up with my nightmares, kicking her and stuff. Almost took her out one night with my cast.” 

She smiled a little at that, but Daryl’s expression was almost tortured. 

“What?” she asked. 

He shook his head. “Sara…it don’t…don’t seem right, that’s all.”

“Why?” she asked baffled. “It’s not the 18th century you know. Guys and girls CAN sleep in the same room. The same bed even.” 

He shook his head angrily. “You think everyone is gonna be happy with a guy like me, staying in a room with a girl like you? Might not be the 18th century, but it’s still some things that haven’t changed, apocalypse or not,” he spat out. 

Sara frowned. “What do you mean, a ‘guy like you’? What’s wrong with a guy like you?” 

His lips twitched a little at that, and he moved to take his hand away from Sara, but she grabbed it in hers. She spread it open in her lap, marveling at how big it was compared to hers, nearly half the size and callused and rough, his nails short and broken. 

Then, it came to her. 

It would require a bit of acting, but after all, that was her job, right? 

“I guess if you don’t want to sleep in here, I have to accept that,” she said, trying to sound sad but brave at the same time. “The nightmares aren’t so bad, I am used to them”—she paused for a second to look at him from under her dark lashes—“I can handle it…or maybe Herschel could give me some sleeping pills or something. I mean, it’s just dreams, right?” 

She looked back up at him and saw him staring at her with a pained expression on his face. Sighing a little bit, she pouted her lower lip. 

“Girlllll,” he groaned, his breath hitching in his throat as he took in the sight of her pouting, bruised face as she stroked his hands. “You’re killing me.” 

“What do you mean?” she asked in an innocent voice. 

“God damn it,” he sighed, shaking his head in defeat. “I’ll stay with ya, ‘course I’ll stay with ya.”

She clapped her hands happily. 

He shook his head in bemusement. “I know the others wont like it…’cept maybe Merle. Might even try to stop me. But hell, I won’t let ‘em. I can’t have you here alone and scared, not if you think me being here will help ya.” 

“Thank you, Daryl,” she said, sincerely now, her heart full and a warm feeling spreading into her chest. “You’re so good to me.”

He laughed unhappily at that. “Fuck you saying? I been a dick to you ever since you came here. And then, after…after, I didn’t…couldn’t even come up here and see you.” 

On impulse, Sara abruptly moved next to him on the bed and leaned over to give him a huge, tight hug. He froze in her arms, as if he was scared, and he didn’t hug her back. But she didn’t care. It still felt good to her. Perfect even. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his lips so close to her that they tickled her hair. “God, girl, I’m so sorry. Can’t believe I left ya here. Can't believe I stayed away like that. Can’t believe you don’t hate me.” 

And then, tentatively, he took his hands and laid them on her back, gently petting up and down as if she was made of glass. 

“I’m just glad YOU don’t hate me,” sighed Sara. “When Shane told me that stuff, I…I” 

“Hush, girl,” he said, wrapping his big arms fully around her so that they almost doubled around her small waist. “Don’t want you thinking about that bullshit no more.”

“Alright,” she agreed, smiling into his neck. “But, Daryl?” 

“Hmm?” he asked, the hum of his voice almost vibrating her body in his lap. 

“I’m like…starving.” 

He chuckled at that. “Let’s git, then.” 

“Okay,” she agreed, but not moving an inch. 

“Girl?” he asked, looking down at her with his eyebrow quirked. 

“I just need one minute, okay?” she asked, not wanting to let go of him just yet.

He let out a heavy exhale and rubbed the top of her head with his chin. “Shit, duchess. ‘Course it’s okay. Always okay.” 

And so, they sat, for how long Sara didn’t know, but when they finally came downstairs, the pasta was almost gone and all the fruit was picked over, but she was glowing like she was sat down at a feast.


	18. Out of the Laundry Room

After dinner, and making sure that Sara ate enough (no small feat, because she was too busy laughing with Beth and Maggie…not that he minded, god knows it made him feel good to see her relaxed and bonding with the other women), Daryl went outside to have a cigarette. 

‘Course, what he really wanted was just some time alone. Time to sit with his thoughts and shake himself, ask himself what the hell was happening, what the hell happened between this afternoon and tonight to have his head and heart turned inside out like this. 

It was hard though, hard to quiet his own thoughts and the buzzing, electric feeling in his blood. Felt like his skin could shoot off sparks, like you could see him radioactive and glowing all the way from outer space. 

When he went up those stairs to see Sara, when he sat by her bedside as she napped, his only plan had been to say sorry, explain Shane was lying and then hightail it out of there. He wanted to know she wasn’t hurting on account of him, that’s all. 

But then, she had started murmuring in her sleep, saying something, something that sounded a helluva like his name, over and over, and then she was screaming her little head off, flailing on the bed and hyperventilating. 

That’s the only reason he felt bold enough to pull her into his lap, to soothe her and chase her nightmares away. Felt she would do herself an injury otherwise. But then, when he tried to let her go, she had climbed into his lap…STRADDLED him, no less, and held on to him like he was a glass of water and she was lost in the desert. 

And then the way she glowed when he told her she was beautiful (well, hell, wasn’t that fucking obvious enough?) and the way she pouted—actually—pouted to wheedle him to stay in her room. When she first mentioned it, the idea made him sick with desire, desire like he had never felt before in his life, not just carnal, skin-burning lust (but that too, of course), but something else…a need like he had never felt before, a need to held and be held, a need to retreat from the wild, blood-wet world and into something soft, warm and ancient as the first cave where a man and woman made a home. 

Shit, he thought, taking a deep drag from his cigarette, and they hadn’t even talked about sleep arrangements, though he absolutely intended to sleep on the floor no matter what she said. There was no way in hell he could share a bed with her, no way he would be able to keep himself from being rock-hard all night, from reaching for her and spreading those soft, sweet thighs underneath him…

Fuck. No fucking way. Barely a week had passed since those fuckin’ sick pieces of shit had held her down and ripped her clothes off—and absurdly, shamefully, Daryl felt tears pricking his eyes. Fucking pussy, he said to himself, hating himself for the weakness, but god, the rage, the rage he felt at that image in his head was enough to fucking rip his guts in half. 

So, no, he wouldn’t share a bed with her. But, he could sleep on the floor next to her. Could rest easier than he had in weeks knowing that she was breathing and safe right there by him, that if anyone tried to hurt her, his unquenchable thirst for blood would put even the walkers to shame. 

***

After dinner, Sara went upstairs and washed her face and brushed her teeth. She had mentioned lightly to Beth, that if it was okay with her, Daryl was going to be sleeping in her room, and Beth had only smiled broadly and bobbed her head up and down. 

She went into the teenager’s bedroom and changed into a pair of soft gray leggings and a white camisole, thankful as ever that Beth Greene had good taste and a penchant for shopping before the dead started walking. Then, looking in the mirror, she carefully pinned back a few pieces of her hair and applied a little lip gloss. Her bruises looked awful, but the rest of her skin was clear and glowing, and despite her deep insecurities after a lifetime in the business, she was pleased enough with her appearance. 

Sighing happily, she climbed into bed, leaving a single kerosene lamp burning on the dresser, as she let herself relish the soft warmth of the bed. She was just going to rest her eyes until Daryl came up to bed. Her head was aching a little, but she didn’t want to take more painkillers if she could help it. Even with the pain, a little smile played on her lips as she closed her lids tight. 

It was pitch-black in the room when Sara woke up, and she cried out in surprise, momentarily confused where she was. 

She heard a rustling beside her and almost screamed, but then she heard a familiar, raspy drawl, “Hey, hey, s’okay.” 

“Daryl,” she said, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and sitting up, as she tried to make out his shape on the ground by her bed. “What are you doing on the floor?” 

“Sleeping, duchess, what’s it look like?” he asked. “You was asleep when I came in here so I just put out the light and laid down as quiet as I could. Musta been a couple hours ago.” 

“No, I mean, why aren’t you in bed?” she asked, in a sleep-thick voice. 

A pause. 

“Can’t sleep in the bed with ya,” he said. “Happy on the floor.” 

“Why?” she demanded, starting to feel more awake…and more in pain, if she was honest. Her head was simply throbbing. She raised her hand to touch her wound tentatively. 

Even in the dark, Daryl must have seen the motion, because he rose up off the ground and kneeled beside her, looking for her in the dark with his hands.

“Your head’s hurting,” he accused gruffly, pulling her towards him so that her weight was almost off the bed and leaning tight into his chest. 

She wanted to lie, but she felt too tired and anxious. She hated being sick like this, without any real doctors or medical care, it made her feel weak and vulnerable and frankly terrified. 

“Just a little,” she whispered into his chest, one tear rolling down her cheek which she prayed he didn’t see. 

“Let me get Herschel, get you some meds,” he said, his grasp tightening around her. “Cant have ya in pain like this.” 

“NO,” she said forcefully. 

He looked down in surprise. “I-I-I mean no, please, Daryl,” she said, more tears slipping out. “Just stay, okay? I don’t want anyone else.” 

He sighed, his chest rising and falling as Sara sank as deep into him as time and space would allow. 

“Daryl?” 

“Yeah, girl?”

“Will you do something for me?”

“Shit, anything.”

“Come get in bed by me.” 

“No,” he said, after a pained pause. 

“You just said you would do anything.” 

“Do anything to help ya. Me getting in bed with ya ain’t gonna help ya.” 

“Why not?” she demanded, wrapping her fingers around his wife-beater. 

“Girl.” 

“Why. Not,” she whined. 

“Because you know why.” 

“Don’t.” 

He let out a huff of frustration, and then used his right hand to brush some hair out of her face. In doing so, he must have felt the tears on her cheek. 

“Aw, baby,” he said sadly. 

And Sara’s heart clenched. He hadn’t ever called her that before. 

“Baby,” he said again, as if he too liked the way it sounded on his tongue, “I can’t get in bed with you. Because if I get in bed with you…I won’t be thinking…right.” 

“You mean, you’re going to be thinking about fucking me?” she asked, and he almost gasped aloud at her straight-forwardness, and then he just chuckled. 

“My brother always said you were funny,” he said. 

“What if I’m thinking about fucking you too?” she asked, ignoring his attempt at changing the conversation. 

He let out a deep groan. “Ain’t happening. You’re hurt and you just…after what just happened to you…what you been through…I ain’t going to be pawing at you like a wild animal.”

“But I want you to paw me,” she complained, leaning closer to him and letting her fingers stroke up and down his jaw, enjoying the sensation of her long fingernails scratching his stubble. 

His tongue darted out and swiped his lower lip. 

“That’s proof enough you got a bad head injury,” he said. “So it ain’t happening.” 

She sighed. “Alright, fine, can’t blame a girl for trying…but you can still get in bed with me. We can just sleep. I don’t want you on the floor, it’s not right.” 

“It don’t bother me none, used to it,” he said. “Let it go, girl.” 

Sara felt a little sorrowful at that, and she laid back down dejected on the pillow. It didn’t help that the room was spinning and her head felt cloudy and weak. 

Silence filled the room and she closed her eyes, trying to breathe the dizziness away and relax. 

Then, suddenly, she felt the mattress dip down beside her. 

“Daryl?” she questioned him, as he lifted her up and over on the mattress, laying down on her pillow and pulling her head back down on top of his chest. 

“Hush,” he said. “I’m sleeping.” 

She grinned and wrapped her arm around his chest, and then lifted a leg to wrap around his. 

“Girl,” Daryl said in a warning tone, scooting his lower half out of her reach. “Be good.” 

“Hmm,” she sighed, feeling weariness overtake her as his warmth surrounded her. “Just snuggling.”

“Don’t need to be snugglin nuthin’ down there,” he commanded, and she giggled into his chest, reaching out to stroke his muscled arm. 

The room went quiet for several minutes, and she wondered if he fell asleep. But then he rasped out, “Duchess?” 

Sara was almost asleep herself, but she let out a “Hmm?” 

“Like this better than the laundry room.” 

She snorted at that, and he pinched her waist affectionately. 

Down in the kitchen, the cuckoo clock struck one and the Greene house was quiet and still, the doors shut tight to the dead—and the living—outside.


	19. Stick Around, Girl

When Daryl woke, the first thing he thought was that there was a towhee singing outside his window. It was a male, he knew, from the long, jumbled series of clear whistles that repeated every few seconds. The second thing he thought was that his cock felt hard enough to break ice. Casting his mind back to the events of last night, he wasn’t surprised. 

Blinking in the early morning light, he shifted under the soft mattress, and looked across the bed. Sometime during the night, Sara had rolled off of him and all the way to the other side of the bed, her back towards him. It was a seductive sight, her round, firm ass pulling tightly at the thin blanket on top of her legs, and he instinctively reached down to palm his dick, biting back a moan as he did so. 

He tried to focus on the sound of the towhee instead, breathing in and out deeply and willing his erection to go down before she woke up. He felt like a pervert, even after she had blown his mind last night by basically telling him she wanted him to…fuck her. He could barely even think the sentence in his head. It was too much to comprehend. 

Fuck, I’m in trouble, he thought. He had well past any stage where he could think logically around her, where he could remind himself not to let his guard down, not to fall so hard for a girl who was so far above him they didn’t even belong in the same solar system. 

Cause it wasn’t just that she was the most beautiful thing he had even seen. He meant that when he said to her, and that was high praise coming from him, ‘cause shit he found lots of girls pretty. Lori, Andrea, Maggie, Beth, Amy…he was always one to see something beautiful in nearly every woman, but it wasn’t until Sara that he felt that attraction go into overdrive, become less of appreciation for something pretty and more of an obsession, more of a bone-breaking need. 

Because outside of her big, gray eyes and those long lashes and that sweet, shy smile, she had something else. She was soft, almost child-like inside, but tough too…like she was ready to get hurt and daring you to assume she couldn’t take the pain. Didn’t make a lot of sense, that quality, ‘cause he imagined her life before this to be something like a fairy tale, all red carpets and fancy mansions and sushi dinners. 

She murmured in her sleep, and he reached out for her instantly, smoothing his hand up and down her bed-tousled hair. He tensed in excitement as he waited for her to wake up (God I really am obsessed, he thought), but then she seemed to fall back asleep. 

So, he lay there and allowed himself the luxury of playing with her hair, folding it through his fingers, tugging on the waves just the smallest bit, just enough to watch the strands spring and bounce back like magic. It was hypnotic. He hadn’t ever been with a redhead before, or a woman with such long hair, as his type before the world ended generally gravitated more towards the rough-and-tumble type girls…the kind who rode dirt bikes and had rap sheets, definitely not the kind who had perfectly manicured nails and wore lip gloss even in the middle of the apocalypse. 

He also considered the very real possibility that focusing on her hair was helping to keep his mind and his hands from traveling between her thighs, from cupping her pussy from behind and just squeezing for the briefest second, just long enough to feel her heat on his fingers. He sucked in his lower lip at that thought, hating himself for the idea, because he would never touch her like that while she was sleeping. 

Somewhere downstairs, Sophia let out a laughing shriek, and Daryl heard running footsteps through the house, followed by a loud war whoop from Carl. Sara twitched in her sleep, and Daryl instantly felt a flash of annoyance at the kids. Usually he tolerated their noise pretty well, but he saw how much pain Sara was in last night, and she needed her rest.

But it was too late. Letting out a light, muffled moan, she stretched her limbs and then paused for a second, before quickly rolling over and looking behind her. Her expression went from tense to content instantaneously.

Daryl frowned as a swell of sadness filled his belly. “You thought I wasn’t gonna be here?”

She started to shake her head in denial, and then stopped mid-way. She shrugged sheepishly, the motion causing the strap of her camisole to slip down her smooth shoulder.

“Thought maybe... maybe I dreamt it,” she said, her voice hoarse and low from sleep.

The sound made his dick twitch, not just ‘cause she sounded sexy as hell, but because this was her waking-up voice... and he got to hear it. Him. Just him. The intimacy of it felt almost overwhelming, but instead of running from it like he might expect, he found himself just imagining fucking her into the mattress until she called out his name over and over in that low, hoarse voice.

She was smiling down at his hands now, and he looked to see that he was still pulling and twisting her hair around his fingers.

“Sorry,” he said, feeling a little embarrassed. 

“Don’t say sorry,” she said, closing her eyes and letting out a low hum into the pillow. “I like it...I like you touching me.”

A flush covered his cheeks and his hands curled and formed tight fists in her hair. While her eyes were close, he felt bold enough to reach down and kiss her below her ear, right on the pulse point. He hovered there for a second, inhaling the scent of her skin and her hair, before feeling self-conscious and pulling away to gauge her expression.

Daryl felt like he oughta say something, oughta have some type of heartfelt and meaningful conversation, but as always, he found himself struggling to put his thoughts into words. He never woke up with a girl before, at least not like this — sure he passed out next to a few girls after too many drinks, but he always slunk out the next morning barely able to remember what happened, usually not even bothering to say goodbye.

But this, this was different. Waking up next to Sara wasn’t some dumb decision after too many shots with Merle. Wasn’t something he wanted to forget. No, it was something he wanted to brand his memory with, something to keep close and sacred, something he wanted to wear like armor...and he wished he could find a way to say something like that, not exactly that of course, that would scare her away for sure, but something to let her know that waking up next to her was the best thing that ever happened in his whole shitty life.

Instead, all he could come up with was twisting her hair a little tighter in hands and saying huskily, “So pretty, baby.”

But before he had a chance to beat himself up for how stupid he sounded, her face turned radiant. His heart caught a little at that—didn’t know how he could have that effect on her, hell, she had to know she was pretty, but somehow that simple compliment from him seemed to light her up like a house on fire.

Then she nuzzled closer to him, bringing her head to rest on his shoulder, her face half-buried in his neck, and let out a soft little noise that reminded him of a cat purring.

“Wait,” she paused, “You were talking about me, right?”

He laughed and wrapped his big arms tight around her, as hard as he could.

“I’m serious,” she teased, “Don’t you know insecure actresses are?”

“Girl, if you look in the mirror and feel insecure, you have a worse head injury than I thought,” he scolded, and asked. “How you feeling anyway?”

“Alright,” she said, “Really. I haven’t slept so good in weeks.”

He smiled a little at that and rubbed his chin across the top of her head.

“Really, Daryl, thank you. Being with you... sleeping next to you... I felt--”

She stopped for a second and he realized she was trying to hold back tears.

“Baby?” He asked, laying his head flat on the pillow and pulling her up so that she was propped up on her forearms on his chest and he was face to face with her.

“I’m sorry,” she said wiping a tear away self-consciously. “I don’t know why I’m crying, you must think I’m a wreck.”

“All I’m thinking is, why you crying?” He asked, tsking at her and holding her small soft hands down in his. He wanted to see her tears. “It hurts bad again?”

“No, no, I’m just...” she shook her head in frustration as if trying to think of the right words. “The nightmares have been so bad...and then in the daytime, I just keep thinking about those guys touching me, looking at me, knowing they saw every inch of me before they died...” (Daryl swore he could feel his blood turn to ice at that), and as if sensing his reaction, she hurried onward. “But with you here, I don’t feel...scared or...bad or dirty.”

He closed his eyes at that, her words wounding him so deep that he needed just a second to catch his breath.

“What’s wrong?” She asked worriedly. “I meant it as a good thing, like you’re helping me, helping me so much.”

He was going to take another minute before he answered but she shifted her weight all the sudden so that she was now laying almost completely on top of him, her legs in between his and her arms almost around his neck. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have been able to hide how hard that made him, but right now he was feeling too worked up to pay attention to how much he desired her.

“Just...kills me to...to know you feel that way about yourself,” he said finally, letting himself relax under her and even clenching his thighs to hold her in place. “Ain’t nothing - nothing- dirty or bad about you.” 

She looked at him with watchful eyes, eyes that weren’t fully believing him. 

“I know…I know…how you mean, though,” he said quietly, and he couldn’t believe what he was about to say.

She frowned, “What do you mean?”

“I know…it ain’t the same thing, not ‘t all,” he said, sitting up a little and arranging the pillow behind him so that he was now half-propped up with her reclined on his chest. 

He looked at her for a minute and then soldiered on, “But my daddy, he used to…beat up on me and Merle real bad,” (Sara's eyes went wide), “And I know, I know people would say it ain’t my fault, was just a kid…but, I guess it messed me up pretty bad…Shit.” 

He sat up and pushed her off him gently. She looked confused, and then he slowly pulled his wife-beater off, turning his scarred and beaten back to her.

He didn’t hear anything behind him, but he felt her shift abruptly on the bed, and so he kept talking, desperately hoping he was making some type of sense, that he was reaching her in some way, giving her some comfort. 

“Saying…I feel bad and dirty a lot, too,” he admitted, twisting his shirt in his hands. “And maybe that’s fair, cause I ain’t always been the best man. But…I don’t want you to feel like that too, to feel like the evil another man has done to ya, makes you evil too…you know?” 

She was still silent, so he kept on. 

“’Cause I know for a fact you ain’t got nothing bad inside ya. Hell, I know –

He stopped talking as he felt soft lips on his back. He bit back the noise in his throat, something between a moan and a gasp. She started to kiss slowly up and down the scars on his back, and through the blood rushing in his ears, he could hear that she was quietly sobbing. 

“Shit, girl,” he said dejectedly. “I wanted to make ya feel better, not worse.” 

Her fingers lightly trailed the scars along with her lips, tracing the paths of destruction as gently and softly as if she was soothing a wounded animal. 

“Daryl, my Daryl,” she murmured wretchedly, and he swore his heart almost stopped, almost stopped beating entirely at being called “her” Daryl. 

She sounded so sad that he felt like he was torturing her. He moved to put his shirt back on. 

“No!” she said. “I mean, please, if it’s okay…I want…I need to…”

She leaned over and tried to push him a little. He looked down at her and then realized she wanted him to lay back on the bed. He obeyed, but was surprised when she used her body weight to angle him so that he was largely on his stomach, his back facing her. 

He barely stifled a groan as she went back to kissing his back, this time rubbing her wet cheeks against them as well, back and forth, as if she was baptizing his wounds with her salty tears. Her hair tickled against his scarred flesh, and the sensory overload was almost crushing.

“My Daryl,” she said again, and her voice sounded protective, shielding, almost steely in its softness. 

And then, as if repeating a mantra or a prayer, she continued tearfully pressing her lips to his scars, rubbing his flesh with her soft face, as she said over and over, “So good. So good. You’re so good. You’re so good. So good.”

Daryl’s body went rigid. He had the urge to get out of the bed, to put his shirt on and run from that room, to put Sara back in that “spoiled bitch” box he had put her in the first day he met her. Because this couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be right. This was wrong. He wasn’t good. In 39 years, no one had ever called him good, not even his momma. He felt like he was seeing spots, like he had stared too long at the sun. 

“It’s too much, isn’t it?” she said, sensing his unease and pulling back, resting her hands gently on his back. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I just…kind of lost it, I’m sorry.” 

His voice broke a little as he said, “Nah, girl.” 

He reached back and grabbed for her hands, pulling her body towards his so that she was flush against his back. He could feel that her breasts pushing against his back, her nipples hard against the broken flesh there. 

“Thank you for showing me, Daryl,” she said, nuzzling his neck. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and interlaced his fingers with hers. 

“I wish we could stay in bed all day,” she sighed. “But I gotta eat breakfast and do my chores.” 

He snorted a little at that. “Chores? You mean talking to Fancy?” he teased her. 

“Heck, yea!” she said. “I gotta tell her all about the big, sexy man I had in my bed last night.” 

He blushed and rolled over. “Fuck outta here, then,” he said, “And remember to mention how huge my cock is.” 

With that he hopped out of bed, narrowly missing the pillow she tossed at him. “What is WITH you Dixon boys always talking about your cocks?” she said in mock annoyance. 

“Stick around, girl, maybe you’ll get a chance to find out what all the fuss is about,” he joked, slamming the door shut behind him as he headed off to the bathroom, the sound of her laughing following him down the hall.


	20. Pitching Fences

Sara didn’t have long to enjoy the after-glow of sharing a bed with Daryl Dixon. She could tell something was wrong when she walked into the dining room and saw Rick’s tense, worried face, so she grabbed an apple and went outside to gather eggs. After that, she helped Glenn and Maggie chop firewood…or that is to say, she helped carry firewood while they did the chopping. 

Nearly exhausted, she went to find Andrea for a chat. 

She soon found her on the back porch facing the barn, where Andrea was sat on the grass cleaning a gun, her face screwed up against the early afternoon sun.

“Hey, girl,” said Andrea, giving her friend a little smile. “Come help?”

“I can try, if you show me what to do,” Sara said, sinking to her knees. 

Andrea walked her through the motions, but her expression was strained and distant. 

“What’s up?” asked Sara in concern. 

“What do you mean?”

“I can tell you’re upset, Andi…and I could tell Rick was this morning as well.” 

Andrea gave her a “You aren’t going to believe this look,” and then whispered, “Lori’s pregnant!”

Sara squeaked. “Shut up! For real?”

Andrea nodded solemnly, unscrewing her thermos of water and taking a slurp.

“But…that’s good, right?” Sara frowned. “I mean…it’s not good, I guess, considering our situation, but…we can take care of her, right? She’ll be okay, right?” 

Andrea smiled affectionately at the younger woman. “We’ll do our best, for sure…it’s just our food stocks are super low, and winter is coming…less game to catch, plus the walkers have been chasing away most the wildlife as it is. And she needs vitamins and medical care, plus everything the baby will need.”

Sara put her head in her hands. She hated that this was her first thought, but she said it out loud anyway, “So that means...they gotta go on another big run?” 

Andrea reached out and grabbed Sara’s hand in her hers. “I promise to do everything I can to keep you safe. What happened last time…I won’t let that happen again.”

Sara clenched her hand tightly. “You saved me, Andy. I owe you my life. I just…” 

“Don’t want Daryl to go?” asked Andrea knowingly. 

Sara closed her eyes and felt her head swimming. 

“You should lay down upstairs in bed,” said Andrea. “No point in pushing yourself past your limit. We need you strong and fit. You’ve been overdoing it today.”

Sara nodded absently, and walked into the house, happy for an excuse to have some private time. She couldn’t believe this. She had been so happy yesterday and this morning, as if all the terror and pain from the last weeks had lifted, as if she had finally found a soft place to land.

And, now…now she would be alone again, and worse, Daryl would be out there, in danger. Maybe he would never come home again. He could get bit by a walker, or attacked by other scavengers…or, or…maybe he might even decide to stay gone of his own accord. Why not? He didn’t need this group to survive. He could easily strike out on his own, probably have an easier time of it if he did. Wouldn’t have to carry dead weight like her. Wouldn’t be stuck on a farm in the middle of nowhere with dwindling supplies and cold weather coming, not to mention the ever-present risk of hungry corpses and hungrier survivors. 

Filled with dark thoughts, she stripped down to her cami and panties and laid on top of the bed. She hated how selfish and weak she was being, hated that she was thinking only of herself instead of the well-being of Lori and her unborn baby, as well as the rest of the group. Herschel was an elderly man, a man who had selflessly opened his home and his hearth to them, and they had the other two children to consider as well. 

It was absolutely hideous of Sara to only be thinking about herself and the heart-rendering prospect of saying goodbye to Daryl again, possibly forever. She hated herself for being this way, for being so weak and useless and cowardly. 

Groaning, she rolled over on her belly and shut her eyes, willing her mind to be quiet and to let her rest. 

But, just as she was nearly asleep, she heard a good-natured chuckle behind her. 

Whirling around in the bed, she saw Merle standing there leaning against the door frame, in his signature wife-beater and chinos, smiling like the cat who got the cream.

“The fuck, Merle?” she cried out. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Could say the same to you, honey,” he smirked, casting his eyes up and down her exposed legs and boyshorts that barely covered her ass. “You oughter shut the door all the way if you’re gonna lay there with your tail hanging out. Y’know I a’int supposed to be coveting my brother’s wife and all, but I am only human.”

“Go away, Merle,” groused Sara, pulling the blanket over her lower half quickly and laying back down on the bed with a thump. “I don’t feel good.” 

Merle’s attitude changed abruptly. He stomped across Beth’s pink carpet, no doubt tracking mud and grass all over it. But as he sank down on the bed next to Sara, his tone was surprisingly gentle.

“I’m sorry, sugar,” he said. “What’s hurting ya?”

“Why are you here?” she asked, peeking out from between her half-shut lashes. “I thought you and the rest of the guys were trying to rig some kind of fence.” 

“We were. We are,” he said. “I just came to check in on ya when Andrea said you were feeling down. And…to be honest, baby bro told me to come, since he’s in the middle of something.” 

She sighed. 

“Do you need Herschel?” he asked. “Or maybe a cup of cold water?” 

His voice was husky but warm, and it reminded her so much of Daryl and their past night together that she started to cry.

Merle let out a low thoughtful hum, and then reached down to the ground. Sara realized he was taking off his combat boots, and she then felt him prop himself on the pillows beside her. She waited for him to badger her about why she was crying, or for him to make a joke and try to lighten the mood, but then she realized that wasn’t his style. Merle was anything but chickenshit, and tears didn’t scare him or disturb his natural confidence, so if she wanted to cry, it seemed he was going to give her the space to do just that. 

“Let it out, sugar. Ya feel better when ya finished,” he said, affirming Sara’s judgement. So she did, for a few minutes, until finally, she rolled over in bed and looked up at him.

“You’re leaving again, aren’t you?” she asked. 

He raised his eyebrows thoughtfully as if putting a puzzle together. “Mmm-hmm. ‘Course. Gotta. Won’t survive the winter otherwise.” 

She felt even more ashamed. “I know…it’s just…” 

“I promise you my girl’ll keep ya safe, honey,” he said, pulling a few strands of her hair off her tear-wet face. “What happened last time—that ain’t gonna happen again. Andrea’s tough, and she cares about you. She won’t let you get hurt.”

Sara sobbed. “I don’t care about that, I’m not worried about that, I just don’t want him to go. He can’t go. I can’t…”

Merle suddenly got gruff with her. “Listen, you gotta cut this shit out, right now. This is the real world, now, okay? This ain’t Kansas anymore, sweetheart. There’s more to think about than just you not wanting your boyfriend to leave you for a few days.” 

She cringed at his words, but she knew he was telling her what she needed to hear. As much as she hated being that Hollywood star stereotype, she knew there was some truth in the fact that she was a bit more spoiled and delicate than the others. She was used to getting what she wanted whenever she wanted, and when she didn’t, she was used to having pills and alcohol and shopping to make that pain go away. 

Now all she had was herself. Not even Daryl could fix everything that ailed her. And that had to be okay somehow. She had to find a way to be okay not being okay. 

She just didn’t know how to do that yet. 

“The fuck is goin’ on?” challenged Daryl, sauntering in the room and taking in the scene of Sara and Merle in bed together, Merle stroking her hair and looking down at her with a commanding expression. “Thought you were checking on her, not checking her out?”

“Hey, hey,” said Merle, holding his hands up defensively. “Not how it looks, bro. Just having some friendly talk, that’s all.”

As Daryl walked closer into the room, he saw the evidence of Sara’s crying and frowned.

“Wha’s wrong?” he demanded, walking over to her side of the bed and wrapping a hand behind her neck so he could see her face better.

“Just see myself out,” muttered Merle, rising out of the bed. “Know when I’m not wanted.” 

Sara smiled at him weakly. “Thank you, Merle.” 

“Anytime, honey,” he called out, as he walked out of the room and shut the door behind him. 

“Tell me,” said Daryl, a little angrily, then added. “Please.” 

She sat up and leaned forward into his chest, letting her ear rest on his sweat-stained t-shirt. She could hear his heart thudding in his chest. Apparently seeing her in bed with his brother really had upset him.

“Andrea told me about Lori and going on a supply run again,” she said. “I kind of threw a temper tantrum about it. Merle talked me down.” 

Daryl looked down in confusion. “That all?” he asked. “Going on a run upset you that bad?”

Sara’s insides twisted a little at the cavalier way he said that, as if it wouldn’t bother him at all to leave her here. Considering what had almost happened last time, she would think he would be a little more considerate about how worried she was. 

She pulled away, and said a little peevishly. “Yep, Daryl, that’s all.” 

A shadow crossed his face. He seemed at a loss for a moment and then said softly, “You’ll be safe. It’s gonna be alright, girl.” 

He reached out to hold her again, but she flinched back. It was so easy for him to be flippant she thought. He wasn’t the one who nearly got raped. He wasn’t the one who would have to stay here worrying every minute if a walker had eaten him or worse. 

His expression went hard and unreadable. He looked down at his dirty, callused hands. 

“Don’t trust me, that it?” he asked, his voice hard and bitter. 

Her heart broke a little at that, and she reached out for him. 

“Lay by me,” she said. 

“Dirty,” he said, motioning down at himself, but looking relieved that she was acting a little more like her normal self. 

“So was Merle, I didn’t mind,” she said, and if she chose her words to make him jealous, well, he couldn’t prove it in a court of law, she thought airily. 

Instead of submitting to her like he expected, he suddenly ripped the sheet off her, revealing her black lace boyshorts. He growled at her.

“Where are your fuckin’ pants, girl?” he asked, “You layin’ in bed with my brother like this?” 

She rolled her eyes and said nothing, instead choosing to roll over on her belly and give him a view of her ass. 

“Good mind to take ya over my knee right now,” he said, and his voice was so heated and unraveled that Sara actually thought he might. And the unexpected warmth in her pussy told her she might actually like that. “Make ya remember who ya belong to.” 

She considered taunting him and seeing how far he would take it, but she was too upset to play games right now, even if she was feeling more aroused than she had in recent memory. 

“Daryl, what if …what if you don’t come back,” she asked flatly, in a small, hollow tone. 

“Huh?” he asked. “What’s that mean?”

“I’m just so scared…I know it’s selfish but…I’m so scared you won’t come back,” she said, shaking lightly from the tears now returning to her face. “What if something horrible happens to you…or you, you…decide you…decide you don’t want to come back?” 

There was the noise of Daryl undressing behind her, and she peeked from around her hair to see him pulling off his dirty t-shirt and jeans. He was clad only in a pair of gray boxer briefs, and Sara’s pussy clenched at the sight of his broad, muscled chest and the undeniable bulge in his shorts. 

“Roll ova’,” he said to her, and she obeyed, allowing him to lay down in her spot and spoon her from behind.

“Now,” he whispered, locking both of her wrists together in one hand while using his other arm to drape heavily around her small waist. “Tell me again, very slowly, what the fuck you are talking about.” 

She frowned in confusion, and nearly moaned aloud from the feeling of his dick nestled in between her ass cheeks and the firm feeling of her hands being securely held by his. She couldn’t help but instantly picture them fucking, wonder if he would hold her hands like that, pull her arms back so that he had all the control and could get as deep in her as he wanted. 

“Girl,” he said impatiently. 

“O—on the supply run,” she stuttered. “If something happens…or you decide not to come back.” 

“That’s why you was crying and all mad at me when I came in?” he laughed. 

“It’s not funny, Daryl” she said, angry all over again and trying to squirm out of his grasp to no avail. 

“Girl, stop wiggling,” he complained, but from the growing hardness of his cock, she knew he was actually enjoying it. 

“No,” she cried. “I want up.” 

“Ain’t letting you up. So get comfortable and tell me when you’re ready to listen.” 

She cried out in frustration and tried to buck her hips to get out of his hold, but as she twisted and turned, exhausting herself, she could feel that he was barely exerting any effort to keep her in place. 

“I’m ready to listen,” she sighed, hating that she was now so turned on from grinding all over his lap that she was worried he could smell her arousal.

“Good. Cause I don’t like repeating myself, but apparently you don’t listen too good.” 

She blushed angrily at that, but he continued on, stressing his words with more intensity than she ever heard, “I told you last night, I TOLD you LAST night, I ain’t ever leaving you again. DIDN’T I? Didn’t I, girl?” 

Sara gave a quick nod. 

“Kay. So why the fuck, less than 12 hours later, do you think I’m leaving you to go on a supply run?” 

She twisted her head to look back him, and he let her turn so that she was now almost on her back looking up at him, opening his legs to trap her legs securely in his. 

“You mean you’re not going?” she asked confused. 

“Course I’m going. Have to go,” he said, as if stating the obvious. “So you’re coming with me. Ain’t leaving ya. Ain’t ever leaving ya ever again.” 

Her mouth dropped open. “But…I’d be useless to you…worse than useless...”

He snorted at that. “You’re the furthest thing from useless. But, it don’t matter, regardless. I couldn’t focus for a second if I was worrying about you here. Like I said. You’re coming. Ain’t up for debate.” 

He paused for a second and then his eyes searched her face, before suddenly looking a little anxious. “Unless you don’t…want to come with me?” 

He looked so much like a kicked puppy in that moment that Sara reached out and stroked his cheek. 

“I want to go with you,” she said. “No matter where you’re going, I always want to go with you. If…you think…it’s not a bother.”

He grinned at that and settled back on the pillow a little deeper. 

“Wait…so…you thought I was laughing cause…you were going to be scared here alone?” he asked, his eyes widening. 

She shrugged sheepishly. 

“Aw, baby,” he said, and he impulsively reached down and grabbed her chin. “I’m sorry.”

He kissed her on the side of her mouth, just on the farthest corner of her lips. His lips were callused and chapped, but his kiss was soft. 

She had the urge to lean into his mouth and take the kiss further, but instead she laid still, sensing that he wanted to be in control right now, that after what he revealed to her this morning, that he needed to be the one calling the shots. 

So she laid there frozen in pleasure as he gazed back down at her, and then continued kissing her softly all over, first on her cheeks and jawline, then her ears and neck. When he reached a particular sensitive spot near her pulse point, she let out a low, heated moan, and she felt him grin, and then he started to suck her there, gently at first and then with more pressure. She started to roll and rock her hips back against him, but then he pulled away and smiled down at her. 

“Naw, you ain’t been a good girl,” he said, and she dropped her jaw in faux defensiveness. 

“I have too!” she pouted. 

“Oh yeah?” he asked, reaching down to squeeze her thick ass, his fingers spreading wide. “Do good girls wear sexy little panties like this in bed with my brother? Don’t think so. Don’t think so ‘t all.” 

She moaned and complained, “He got in bed with me! I didn’t know he was gonna come in the room.” 

“Daryl! Dar!!!!!! Daryl!” 

Sara and Daryl both looked at each other in matching annoyance as they heard Rick calling for Daryl downstairs.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he muttered, and then called out loudly, “Coming, man! Coming!” 

“No, stay in bed with me,” she whined, and Daryl grinned. 

“Wish, girl,” he complained. “But we need to use the light while we got it. Trying to get this fence up.” 

“Looks like you already got a fence up,” she said playfully, making to grab for his crotch but he smacked her hands away.

“See what I mean?” he scolded as he hopped out of bed. “Ain’t a good girl ‘t all.” 

She smiled at that and he reached down to stroke her hair. 

“Meet ya back here tonight?” he whispered, letting his fingers run down to her lips. He stroked them lightly, gazing at her with lust-soaked eyes. 

“Yes, sir,” she hummed, and he quirked up his lips at that. 

“Naw, it’s too late for that, duchess,” he teased, pulling up his pants and buckling them. “You’re gonna get it tonight.” 

She giggled and flopped back in bed. 

“Take it easy, okay,” he said, serious all the sudden. “Worry about ya.”

“I worry about YOU,” she said, and he smiled at that as he pulled on his t-shirt.

“Never had a woman worry about me before,” he marveled. “I like it.” 

“DARYL!” Rick’s booming voice nearly shook the Greene house.

“SHIT, I’M COMING!” Daryl shouted back, and then said, “Rest, baby,” before leaving the room and closing the door behind him. 

Yeah, sure, Sara thought sassily, get me all horny and then run off. Jerk. But the smile on her lips lasted long after she finally fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope ya dont hate me for the interruption, but shit, i wasn't gonna make it THAT easy for ya...


	21. Chapter 21

Sara woke up to the feeling of a warm hand rubbing her belly. She opened her eyes, and saw Daryl sitting on the bed, his hand under her cami as he stroked soft circles there. 

“Sleeping beauty,” he murmured. “Gotta wake up now.” 

She moaned lightly and shut her eyes again. “Time is it?” 

“Nearly dinner,” he said. “You been out for a while.” 

“Not hungry. Just sleepy,” she said, and Sara felt him start to pull his hand away as he chuckled. 

“No, no,” she said, grabbing his hand and holding it on her belly, “Keep doing that.” 

“Everyone’s waiting downstairs,” he said, obeying her and going back to rubbing his strong, warm fingers in circles on her belly. “We having a group meeting.” 

She opened her eyes at that. “That sounds ominous. What’s going on?” 

“Just come down,” he said, looking a little unhappy. “It’s going to be okay.” 

She sat up, the rapid unexpected movement causing his hand to slip up her belly and graze the underside of her breast. But instead of moving his hand quickly with an embarrassed look, as Sara would have expected, he kept his hand there, even letting his index finger slip up a little further so that it was just barely feeling the weight of her left breast. 

Normally that would catch her attention completely, but the expression on his face made her focus. 

“What is it?” she asked. 

His voice came out rough as sandpaper, eyes flashing. “Just Shane and Rick…they don’t you coming with us on the supply run. They want to ‘talk’ about it.”

He rolled his eyes at that, and Sara could feel his thinly veiled rage. 

“So I can’t come?” she asked, feeling frightened. 

His eyes squinted and he nearly hissed. “Hell, naw. Just need to talk a little about it.” 

She nodded obediently and started to get out of bed. 

He handed her a pair of leggings that she had tossed on the rocking chair in the corner, and then stood by the door and watched Sara wordlessly while she got dressed. For some reason, the action of it felt oddly intimate — him watching her pull her leggings up made her blush, as she shimmied slightly to pull the tight pants over her ass. As she reached for her rose pink bralette off the dresser, she waited to see what he would do, fully expecting him to look away or show some sign of acknowledgment of the intimacy of the situation. 

Instead, he kept looking at her, with an expression of…ownership in his eyes, she thought. As if his eyes belonged on her body and that was a fact written in the stars. 

“I - I have to put this on now,” she said awkwardly.

He said nothing, but continued staring at her as he leaned against the door frame, a near identical image of Merle’s position just hours earlier, except where his brother’s body had been relaxed and loose, Daryl was all tensely muscled and tight jawed.

Sara waited a moment, wondering if she should turn around and put her back to him, or if she was bold enough to pull down her cami and put her bra on without covering herself.

She hesitated, feeling very exposed and aroused, loving the dominant way Daryl was looking at her, as if her body was hers to look at unless she said otherwise.  
But even as turned on as she was, she was still highly insecure about revealing her body to him. What if he didn’t like what he saw? What if he didn’t like the size of her breasts or the shape of her nipples?

Biting her lip, she decided to raise her cami up rather than down, revealing only her belly as she buckled the bra and then twisted it around front.

Then, without revealing any of herself, she, wriggled her arms in the straps, pulled her bra up and her cami down, and then looked at him defiantly.

He smiled a little at that, rubbing his hands on his jaw.

“You could have just closed your eyes you know,” she said sassily, crossing her arms.

“Did you want me to?” He asked, looking a little concerned.

She shook her head and then nodded, then shook her head again.

“N-no,” she said. “I like you looking at me like that... I just was scared you wouldn’t like what you were looking at.”

He shook his head and crossed the room so that he was staring down into her eyes, his hands wrapping around her biceps in a firm hold. “Not even possible,” he murmured, leaning down and kissing her on the top of her head. 

She gave him a timid smile and then hid her face in his chest, inhaling his woodsy masculine scent. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed in me.” 

He let out a low hum, and ran his hands up and down her hair, letting his fingers pull through the waves and wrap around them. 

“Girl, do I feel disappointed?” He said, nestling his thighs a little closer to hers. She felt his large cock hard against her belly and she swore she could sense her eyes dilate with lust.

“No,” she whispered, pushing her hips into his and trying to gain some more friction between them, some much-needed pressure on her now throbbing clitoris. 

“Alright, then,” he said. “Let’s go downstairs and get to this meeting before I can’t control my very un-disappointed self.” 

She grinned happily. The world was ending outside the window, but as long as Daryl was looking down at her with that look in her eye (and that hard cock in his pants), she wasn’t too sure she gave a shit.

___

Sara’s happy mood quickly dissipated as she realized exactly what this ‘meeting’ entailed. She felt like she was back in Hollywood on an audition, with a room full of stoic, judgmental faces staring back at her while asking her to reveal her most private thoughts and feelings. 

“We just need to know what happened to you before you came here, sweetheart,” said Rick, his calm, patient tone revealing years of experience at questioning people. 

She looked up at Daryl, who was sitting close to her at the dining room table, one large hand wrapped protectively around her knee under the table. 

“They just want to know if you can handle yerself out there,” he murmured to her, clenching his hand a little tighter. 

“’Bout damn time she answers for herself,” groused Shane angrily, clearly peeved at being passed over for Daryl. “Shoulda asked her these questions weeks ago when she first came here.” 

Daryl slammed his fist down on the table and lurched out of his seat. “Talk like that again and you ain’t gonna have a tongue to ask questions with, ya grimy   
motherfucker.” 

“Wait, wait, wait!” cried Sara, pulling him by his bare arm and trying to tug him back into his seat. “Please, Daryl, please. Please. I want…I want to tell them…I want to tell you.” 

Daryl stared down at Shane for a tense moment, but then settled back into his seat, wrapping his arm around the back of Sara’s chair and leaning back in his own, his legs spread wide and an aggressive expression on his face as he continued to keep his eyes on Shane. 

Sara cleared her throat nervously and wrung her hands in her lap.

Closing her eyes, she began speaking, her words coming slowly and uncertain at first, and then unleashing in a torrent almost without her awareness or control. 

“We, we, we were filming location shots in Covington…It was only supposed to be a few days, a week max,” she said. “I was there with my assistant Gillian and my boyfriend Adam.”

Daryl sat up straighter and his arm flinched a little around her. She never mentioned Adam to him, and now she realized that could have been a bad idea. Would it seem like she was lying, hiding something from him? That wasn’t the case at all…Adam was a non-entity, as far as she was concerned, but try explaining that to a man like Daryl. 

Nothing to be done about it now. She sighed and rushed onward, her words crushing each other. 

“He…he’s an actor too. He wasn’t in the movie I was contracted on here in Georgia…that was a horror movie for Columbia…I work with them a lot. Worked, I mean. But he was more of an indie guy. Maybe you knew him…Adam Wilkes? He was in that remake of ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ last year?” 

The room full of men stared at her blankly. She looked up at Daryl and his eyes were squinted so tight she could barely see any blue there. He bit his thumbnail and stared back at his lap.

From the corner, Merle offered, “Honey, just skip to the important stuff.” 

“Sorry…sorry…Anyways, when it first started happening, the news reports…and the gossip on set…we thought, I thought it was a trick the director was playing on us. Garry was like that. They say he was a genius, like the next Orson Welles. But anyways, he would do things, little games to try and pull the best performances out of his actors.” 

She took a breath and continued. “But, it wasn’t a game, it was real. Obviously. And so we decided to get the hell out of here, out of Georgia. We thought it would be safe back in L.A. That it must only be happening here. Like something because of the water or pollution or bad meth or something.” 

Again, Sara felt the energy from Daryl darken, as well as from his brother all the way in the corner. She realized how it sounded. Rich assholes from California assuming the outbreak was just some inbred, cousin-fucking syndrome that was only happen in piece-of-shit Georgia. 

Well, she couldn’t deny the truth…that’s what they had thought, that’s the type of stuff they and everyone else on set had been saying about the backwater Southern town before the dead even started walking. Much as she hated to admit that now, it was true. They had been rich assholes, and they thought safety would be as simple as getting the hell out of this bible-thumping red state. 

Sara continued, now feeling deeply ashamed of herself and hoping Daryl wasn’t holding any of this against her, “So, Gillian and Adam and I, we got in the SUV and we headed towards the airport. But the radio said that no flights were getting out, and the closer we got to Atlanta, the worse the traffic got and people…were getting eaten right in front of us.” 

She shut her eyes tightly, and her voice wavered. “I was so scared, I kept thinking…this is hell, this must be hell. I musta died and gone to hell. And it’s so stupid but I kept thinking, kept thinking about my cat? Like who’s gonna feed her if I’m dead? And how she won’t understand that I’m dead and she will think I just abandoned her?” 

She put her head in her hands and shook for a second, but she felt Daryl’s hand warm at the base of her spine. 

“Ya got this, girl. I’m here,” he whispered, and hearing that, knowing that he still cared about her, even though she hadn’t been always been kind or even close to it in the past, gave her the bravery to continue. 

Taking another deep inhale, she said, “And then we ran out of gas, not that it mattered, cause we couldn’t drive anymore. It was gridlocked everywhere. People were running around like maniacs, kids…kids left by themselves, looking for their parents, lost…Oh my god, the crying and the screaming and then the planes and gunshots, it was so loud. It was so loud.

“And then Adam said, we had to get out of the car, we couldn’t stay there anymore. We didn’t want to, me and Gillian. It was almost dark and we were…just frozen, I guess. Frozen with fear and thinking we could just stay still and not be seen. But, he said, no, we couldn’t just stay there…and then, up ahead of us, we saw…we saw a whole family get attacked by this…horde, a horde that was just devouring them. I swear I could hear the flesh being torn off, smell the urine coming off one of the kids as he peed himself…It was so…” 

She rubbed her eyes and put her head back in her hands. 

After a minute, she looked back up, and saw that everyone was starting at her patiently and piteously, even Shane. They were all remembering their own experiences in those first macabre days, when the brain couldn’t yet comprehend the horrors unfolding and everything seemed too impossible to be real. 

“So we ran. We ran for hours. We didn’t know where we were going or what we were doing. We wanted…we wanted to knock on someone’s door and try to beg for help, for shelter, but, so many people had guns…everyone was shooting, it was just pure panic. We didn’t feel safe approaching anyone’s house. But, finally, we walked by a church, and there were people waving us in, offering everyone walking by a place to stay. 

We were relieved at first. It was safe, or so we thought. But the more people that came in, the more crowded it got. And some people had been shot, or bitten by one of those things…it got so crowded so fast, and people started fighting. Then, one of the church elders said he could take some people in the church bus to another location, to their megachurch about 30 minutes away. He said they had room there, and food and medicine and clothing. Everyone started fighting over who should get to go. Adam…Adam kept trying to make me tell everyone I was famous, and that I wanted on the bus with him and Gillian. 

But I wouldn’t, I knew that was wrong. There were kids there, and old people. There was a person in a wheelchair. But he got so angry at me. He was shaking…shaking me and screaming that I was killing us. Finally, he stood up and told them that I was famous, that I was rich and important and that so was he. And he said that once we got safe, we could repay them tenfold. That important people would care about us and come find us, and that anyone who was with us would be safe. 

The elder…he didn’t seem to understand it all, but he got the picture that we were some kind of big shots or something. So, he said, he said, me and Adam could come, but not Gillian. There wasn’t enough room and people were already arguing and pushing, shoving their way to the parking lot.   
I could barely breathe it was so crowded, but I told Adam I wouldn’t go, not without Gillian. He told me I was crazy and that anyone who stayed here would die. And, then, there was screaming behind us…one of those things had gotten into the church somehow, and it was eating the woman in the wheelchair. She was screaming so loud the whole time, and then more came out of nowhere…more dead people…more walkers, as you call them. I got separated from Gillian somehow, but when I turned around, she was being…one of those things was…”

Now Sara stopped and began shaking, her fingers reaching out to her throbbing, bruised head. 

Daryl groaned in anger, and demanded. “Why you making her do this, Rick? Can’t you see how you’re hurting her? She ain’t even healed from her concussion.”

“It’s okay,” she spoke up. “I’m almost done. I just want to finish.” 

Rick gave her an encouraging nod. 

“I tried to help her, to pull her away but, it got her neck…her blood sprayed all over me. I kept looking for Adam, and I followed everyone running outside. I saw him in the parking lot, he was getting in the bus. It was only half-full, but the elder saw what was happening, saw the walkers everywhere and he just started the engine. I was screaming for them to wait, for Adam to wait, but…he just watched me out the window. He just WATCHED me. I was…hell, he said he wanted to marry me! And he just left me with those things, with all that death and…he said he wanted to marry me,” she said, curling her hands into fists in her lap and shaking her head. 

The room was silent. She continued, faster now, her voice heated with anger and hatred as she thought back to Adam’s betrayal, to the true beginning of the nightmare. 

“Some of us ran to the trees behind the church. We tried to stay together, to fight those things off together. I was with a couple of teenagers for the first day or two. They were brother and sister. Their parents had been eaten up right in front of them. 

But, we got separated when we tried to find shelter in an apartment complex. They heard gunshots and they ran. I twisted my ankle, I couldn’t keep up. But then I got lucky, or so thought. I found a door standing open to one of the apartments. It was empty and torn up, like the people leaving there had left in a hurry. 

There was some food there, not much, but enough, and a half a case of water. I rationed it out and tried to be as quiet as possible. I kept thinking, I just have to wait it out a little while longer. Then help will come. The police will come. But, instead, it kept getting quieter and quieter outside. I didn’t hear planes anymore. Or cars. Or sirens. Or anything. I thought I might be the last person left on earth, except for those things. 

But then, some men started ransacking the apartments. I heard them coming. I tried to hide. But…but…”

She paused for a breath. 

“They beat me. They put me in their truck. They said they were taking me to the warehouse where they lived, that it was safe and if I listened to them, I could be safe   
too. But I would have to pay for my safety with….sex. I didn’t want to, but I played along. I pretended that was okay…then, when the car broke down on the side of the road, I pretended I needed to pee. 

One of the younger guys was watching me while the others worked on the truck and searched the other cars on the road. He was nicer than the others…He knew who I was. He was a little starstruck, I think. I convinced him I was really shy and I needed to him to walk away before I could take my pants down. And then…I ran. And I ran. Until I heard them coming. I hid under some underbrush until it got dark and they gave up.”

Sara stopped talking, suddenly feeling exhausted. 

“And then I found you a little while later?” asked Rick. 

She nodded. “I don’t know how long…how long I was out there alone. It feels like it was forever but also it feels like it was just one long night. I just kept running and hiding. My ribs hurt so bad and it was hard to breathe, but I run…I used to run a lot, marathons and stuff. So, it worked for a while…until, it didn’t. When you found me, I hadn’t had food or water in days. I was too scared to scavenge, so I was just…waiting to die. I was ready to die.”

No one spoke. 

“Can I be done now?” she asked, looking at Daryl. 

He only grunted in response, pushing his chair back across the floor with a loud scrape. 

“She’s done,” he said to the others, standing up and pulling Sara up by her hands. “And, in case it ain’t obvious, she knows a helluva lot more about survival than most people in this house.” 

With that, he walked her out of the room. When they got to the stairs, he suddenly bent down and wrapped a hand around the back of her knees, lifting her up as let out a “Ohh!” sound. 

Carrying her in his arms, he walked her up the farmhouse stairs and into Beth’s bedroom, where he sank down on the carpet with her still folded into him. She let out a relieved sigh and then shut her eyes, glad to be in the dark and the quiet, away from the others, away from all the horrors she just spoke into existence. 

She was worried about what he was going to say, if he was going to challenge her about not mentioning Adam, or if he would think she had been keeping secrets from him intentionally. 

But instead, he just rasped out lowly, “You’re so strong, baby. I’m real proud of you.” 

Her stomach dipped a little that, and she felt a surge of relief.

“But I didn’t do anything,” she couldn’t help but point out. “All I did was run and hide. I never even killed one of those things.” 

He clucked his tongue and kissed her roughly on her forehead, tucking a loose stand of hair behind her ear. “You’re here. You survived. That’s everything. That’s everything.”

She wrapped her arms around his torso and snuggled into him as close as she could. Finally, when her heartbeat slowed down a little, she titled her head up and looked at him. He was staring down at her intensely, watching her like she was an animal he was a little scared of, and then, she leaned forward and pressed her lips softly against his for a moment. 

Pulling back, she looked up at him again, a little nervously. He let out a low, aggressive hum and reached for her chin, dragging her lips back to his for a long, heated kiss, his tongue inside of her mouth like he had been dying for a taste of her. She felt her pussy clench instantaneously. He wasn’t just kissing her, he was claiming her, and even through his jeans, she could feel his cock hard underneath her ass. She sighed into the kiss, letting him deepen it even further as his tongue searched for hers, and his rough, callused hand suddenly snuck up inside her cami and grasped her right tit firmly. The pressure surprised her and she let out a little squeak, and he pulled back for a second, dropping his hand and then biting her plump lower lip lightly. 

“What is it?” she asked huskily, trying to come back for another kiss before he stopped her.

“Just..don’t want to hurt ya,” he said, shyly. “I ain’t…I ain’t that gentle, I guess.” 

“Gentle?” she asked. 

“Feel like I might break ya,” he said, sounding a little sheepish. “I want…ya so bad, scared I’m gonna lose control and be too rough.” 

She smiled at that and reached up to run her fingers through his hair. 

“I mean it,” he said, stroking his thumb against the indent in her lower lip. “I feel like…those old Saturday morning cartoons, where it’s that big ole’ pitbull and he’s always grabbing on that little black-and-white kitten, you remember?” 

“Mmm, kinda,” she said, reaching out for his hand and then slowly, seductively starting to suck on his thumb. 

“Fuuuuckkkk,” he breathed, his voice coming a little undone at that, but he continued on. “C’mon, Looney Tunes, y’know?”

She shrugged and kept sucking, loving the taste of him in her mouth and the way he was reacting, the way his pupils were lust-wide and the way he shifted his cock under her as if helpless to stop himself. 

“Just sayin’,” he said, stopping to moan in spite of himself for a second, before continuing on. “Just sayin,’ I feel like you’re so delicate and sweet, y’know? And I’m a dirty mutt.” 

She bit down a little on his thumb and grinned, then released it. 

“I’m not so delicate, Daryl. Besides…I like that you’re different from me. Different from any other man I have ever known.” 

“You do?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice husky and low. “It makes my pussy wet.”

Now his eyes really went wide and he gripped her hips tightly. 

“It makes my pussy wet to know that you’re dark, and hard, and callused and rough…that you’re all those things, but that I can trust you not to hurt me,” she said. 

As she spoke, he reached both his hands up her cami and started to rub her breasts, groaning a little as he held the heavy weight and fondled them. 

“Besides,” she said, “If I remember those cartoons right, the dog was always being realllll nice to the kitten.” 

He licked his lips and said nothing. 

“You gonna be real nice to your kitten, Daryl?” 

“Fuck, girl,” he said in a pained voice. “As nice as I can be. But that’s what I am trying to say…what if my ‘nice’ is too rough for you? What if you’re thinking about that jackass you mentioned downstairs, or those other pretty boys you probably dated in L.A.?”

She scoffed at that, and gripped his hands tightly through her cami, making his hands clench around her tits even harder. He shut his eyes at that, and then let his fingers drift so that he was stroking her nipples, leaning forward as he did so to start kissing and sucking on her neck. 

“Daryl, you be as rough with me as you want to be,” she murmured, melting into him. “I want you. Just you. I’m not scared.”

“Yeah?” he asked, biting her neck a little. “How about I pick you up in my jaws and carry you around that the pitbull does to that kitten on the cartoons?” 

“Mmmm,” she said, as he pinched and rolled one of her nipples in his hard fingers. “Okay.” 

“Okay?” he asked, a little tauntingly, pinching her nipple a little harder. “You sure ‘bout that? You sure you trust me?” 

Her eyes popped open at that and she looked up at him adoringly, making him stop in his ministrations and take in the intensity of her expression. 

“I trust you,” she said. “You’re the best man I have ever known.” 

He let out a deep exhale of air and leaned his forehead down against hers. “Shit. You’re crazy, girl.” 

She was about to argue with him when suddenly her stomach growled loudly. He cocked an eyebrow at her and she laughed. “Sorry,” she said. “I only had an apple today.” 

He shook his head. “You serious, girl? See, now, the pitbull never had to deal with silly shit like this from that kitten.” 

She rolled her eyes and reached in for a kiss, but he pulled back.

“Uh-uh. You need dinner. Now,” he said. “And I have it on good authority that Lori made some kind of rice thing.”

“OOH, my favorite,” she teased. 

He chucked her under the chin. “Girl, it better be, ‘cause you eating it. You need to eat.”

“Okay, okay,” she whined, snuggling into him and taking a few deep breaths. “Just need one minute here with you, then I’ll be good.” 

He nodded in understanding and relaxed into her touch. Sara squeezed her eyes closed. Somewhere outside an owl hooted, and it sounded to her like a summons. She knew it was time, time for her to go back out there and face the monsters she had not defeated. 

But, first, the rice thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, sooo this WILL be the last time I interrupt them I swear, just felt like a lot going on at once, esp. after all that stuff with her story before Rick found her. I needed a new chapter/scenario/mood before I could get 'em down and dirty.
> 
> & thank you all so much for the sweet and supportive comments!! I'm always so happy to see a comment, and they mean a lot and keep me writing and smiling! xoxxoxo
> 
> Also, I realize the timing of this backstory might be a bit off (as far as I have it in my head, it wasnt TOO terribly long after the outbreak before Rick found her and took her to the farm, which doesn't line up with the show's timeline, buttttt. Can we just suspend reality on that score? Cause I couldn't really see someone like her surviving on her own for too long out there, and also just wanted to keep the focus on the present. 
> 
> And does anyone else remember that cartoon I mean!? 
> 
> http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjw9ms
> 
> Sorry for the long note! I always feel like long notes can take you out of fantasy land and back to reality which goes against the WHOLE POINT so....ill see myself out. :)


	22. Get outta your head, baby

Dinner was a tense affair. Lori’s face was pale and drawn, and finally she got up from the table in a rush. Racing off to the bathroom with her hand over her mouth, everyone knew the pregnant woman was about to be sick. Carol clucked her tongue sympathetically and said she was going to make her some tea. 

“She don’t need tea, she needs a fucking doctor,” hissed Shane, and Sara was surprised by the vehemence and concern in his words. 

No one replied, but Carl gave his dad a worried look. Rick just stared at Shane, face impassive and hard. 

As for the others, Sara sensed she wasn’t the only one who was unhappy to hear about another supply run. After what happened last time, it seemed no one wanted the group to separate again, and even Herschel was unusually on edge and anxious. 

Beth tried to lighten the mood with her singing, but her pretty voice could not soften the grim mood in the dining room. 

“Go’n and get ready for bed,” Daryl said to Sara, who was pushing a few beads of rice around her plate and trying to listen to Beth’s song politely. “Got an early morning tomorrow. I’ll be up after I pack up some of the gear with Merle and Shane.”

Sara nodded nervously, and then rose. Thinking about leaving the safety of the farm the next day and going back out there in the wild was more than a little terrifying, and the bleak, jittery mood at the dinner table had only hastened those feelings of anxiety to the surface. And even though she had quietly ate her dinner and chatted casually with Beth and Maggie throughout the meal, she sensed that Daryl was well-aware of her emotional state and didn’t fall for her phony red-carpet smile at all. 

Although it was a bit frustrating that he could read her so easily, she was glad for the excuse to leave the downstairs and retreat back up to the safety of her bedroom. 

Safety. Was there such a thing anymore? Her stomach twisted a little. She knew Daryl would protect her with his life out there, but did she want that? Did she want Daryl risking harm or even death for her own sake? The idea was nauseating. Was she being selfish by going on this run? She barely even pulled her weight here at the farmhouse, there was no way she would be equal to the task out there in the world. 

Wishing for the hundredth time that she had some Xanax or least a bottle of pinot grigio, Sara washed her face and brushed her teeth. She undid her bun and let her tousled red hair lay in loose waves, and then on impulse, she changed out of her clothes and put on one of Daryl’s old t-shirts instead of her own pajamas. Although the shirt was clean, it still somehow smelled like him, and she found it instantly comforting. She climbed into the cool sheets and curled into a ball, trying to slow her breathing. She struggled to remember the anti-anxiety mantra that Dr. Kasey had taught her, but suddenly that old world seemed so far away, and Sara was shocked to find she could barely remember what Dr. Kasey herself looked like. It was an eerie feeling, and she grappled with the overwhelming possibility that everyone who she ever knew might be dead. 

When Daryl entered the room an hour later, Sara was still awake, clutching her legs to her chest and staring with wide eyes at the ceiling. 

“Thought you might be sleeping,” he said, his voice hoarse and the scent of the woods and smoke coming off him. 

“I tried,” she said, a little apologetically. 

“Mmm,” he breathed. Even with just that small noise, she instantly knew it was Daryl’s way of saying he understood, that he knew why she was nervous and couldn’t sleep. 

She watched him strip off his clothes by the moonlight streaming in through Beth’s window, admiring his huge arms and muscled chest as he pulled off his shirt and jeans. He looked to the dresser where he left his clean tee, and Sara cleared her throat pointedly. He looked over at her laying there in his T-shirt, and sighed in mock irritation, “You stealing my clothes now, girl?” 

“Fight me for it,” she challenged, pulling the tee off and holding it overhead, now wearing nothing but a cami and panties as she smiled seductively at him.

“Shit,” he murmured, walking slowly over to the bed in just his boxer briefs, rubbing his jaw as he looked her up and down approvingly. “Not in the mood to fight tonight.” 

She let out a gentle exhale as he settled on the mattress, his mood changing from playful to serious as he stroked his fingers up and down her shoulder, tugging on the straps of her cami so that one fell loose and fell to the middle of her bicep.

“Wh-what are you in the mood for?” she asked, wide eyes searching his face. She felt very shy all the sudden, and she realized she was trembling a little. Where’s all your big talk about fucking now, Sara, she asked herself. But, that’s all it had been…talk. She had always been good at flirting, at playing the game, it was part of the industry. But now it was time to put artifice away. She wasn’t in costume. There wasn’t a camera in the corner. It was just her and Daryl...and authenticity, and vulnerability, and truth. 

“I’m in the mood to make you feel good, girl,” said Daryl in a quiet voice, his eyes drinking her in with an expression she had never seen before, an almost ferocious desire coming off him in waves. 

He pushed her back on the pillow, as he laid on his side and settled on his forearm. He pulled her hair back across the pillow, his fingers smoothing the tangled strands, then he moved down to trace her cheekbones, her jaw, and then her lips. Finally, after a torturous moment in which Sara felt like she wasn’t breathing, he leaned down and kissed her, coaxing her mouth open slowly with his, and then pushed his tongue inside of her. Her mind went blank and blissful, and when he finally pulled away, she couldn’t have guessed whether the kiss lasted one minute or twenty. 

“Ya quiet tonight,” he said, “Everything okay? I mean…with us?”

On that last question, his voice broke a little, and Sara saw the flash of fearful vulnerability in his darkened eyes. Even after everything that had happened between them, she realized, he was still questioning if he was good enough for her. If it was really him she wanted. That broke her heart just a little bit, and she forced herself to smile, to put his mind at rest.

But he stopped her. “Nah,” he said, sounding a little wounded. “Not that smile.”

Her arched brows shot up. 

“Yeah, I got ya number, Duchess,” he said. “That ain’t your real smile. That’s the one I seen in those magazines, the one you give to the others downstairs when ya trying to hide something.” 

She laughed and shook her head, wrapped her hands around the back of his neck, and stroked his dark hair. 

“Guilty,” she admitted. “But it’s not you…not us. Just scared about tomorrow. Scared of what could go wrong. Most of all, scared of getting you hurt.”

“Me getting hurt?” asked Daryl in surprise, slipping her other camisole strap off so that her top was now dangerously close to coming all the way down. 

“Yeah,” she breathed, starting to lose focus as his hands began massaging her tits through the thin material. “I don’t…want you to get hurt protecting me. Or…killed.”

She forced herself to say that last word, her voice dipping so low it was almost silent. His eyes met hers as he slowly pulled the rest of her cami down, her breasts now exposed in the moonlit room. He didn’t look down, instead reaching out to stroke her cheek, and then he leaned forward and gently pressed his lips on hers for a second. He hovered there, just breathing and taking in her face, before grabbing her hips and dragging him into him for a long, leisurely kiss as her naked chest smashed against his. 

His hands reached up found her bare breasts, and he made a strangled, aroused sound as he caressed them, which caused Sara to smile into his kiss a little. Moving his eyes from her, he broke the kiss and angled his head downward so that he could take her right nipple into his mouth. Sara gasped a little at the sudden sensation of his hot, hungry mouth on the sensitive flesh, and he sucked her there while his other hand found her left breast and grasped it roughly. Closing her eyes, she laid on the pillow and gloried in the feeling of Daryl devouring her, and she bucked her hips up against her will, needing more of him. 

He let go of her nipple, but stayed down at her breast as he looked up at her and smiled. 

“Whatchu want, girl?” he asked, smiling a little mischievously. Watching her, he licked a trail from her lower breast up to her nipple, and then he let his tongue lazily stroke her there, circling around the areola with a slow, studied pace, as if he had all the time in the world. 

She was wordless. She wanted everything. All of him. Everything in him. But even then, she had the horrifying thought that it wouldn’t be enough, that she could never get enough of him, that their time together was going to be too short and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. 

Suddenly she felt teeth on her nipple, just a gentle bite, but the sensation made her squeak in surprise. 

“Get outta your head, baby,” Daryl said, a little sadly. “Everything’s gonna be okay, I promise ya.” 

“You can’t promise that,” she said, reaching down to pull his head back to her breast, both to feel his lips there and to hide the tears swelling in her eyes. He looked back up at her with a fierceness in his eyes, and suddenly without warning, he pushed his fingers down into her panties. 

She jumped, the action pushing his hand deeper into her underwear, sending his fingers careening through her wet softness. 

“Daryl!” she cried out, the utterance coming out completely of its own accord. 

“Shh,” he said, chuckling a little. “Shit, girl. You’re so wet.” 

She blushed, and even in the half-darkness of the room, he sensed it. “Nah, girl, I like it. In fact…” 

And then his voice drawled off as he scooted down on the bed, pulling her panties down the rest of the way and exposing her wet, naked cunt to the cold night air. He sat on his knees, and pulled her lower half into his lap, looking down at her pussy as if he was committing her to memory. 

“Fuck, ya got the prettiest little cunt, girl,” he said, reaching out to stroke her soft skin there, his fingers grazing up and down the bare flesh. 

She flushed a little and shut her eyes. “Daryl, I--

“Hush, I’m busy,” he said, and then, lifting her hips into the air as he bent down, he slowly licked between her pussy lips with a thick, purposeful motion. 

“Daryl!” she squeaked again, and she felt him give her ass a tiny slap. 

“You want to give Herschel a heart attack?” he teased. 

Before she could say anything, he was back to licking her pussy, his tongue discovering every inch of her as he used one hand to pull open her lips while his mouth locked onto her cunt. 

She rocked her hips against his face. He felt so good it almost hurt. 

“Please, Daryl, I—

He just shushed her again, the action causing a delicious thrill of vibration on her clit as he did so. And then he took one finger and cautiously pressed it inside of her. 

She bit down hard on her lip and tried to keep from coming apart. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so intensely aroused during sex, as if the man with her wasn’t just looking at her, but was really seeing her…maybe it had never happened before, she thought. At that moment, Daryl nipped her clit with his teeth and she instantly brought her hands to her mouth and moaned into them. 

“Ya thinking too much again,” he admonished her. 

“Can’t – help—it,” she panted out, as his mouth went back to sucking her clit while he inserted another finger into her vagina, stretching her as he worked his fingers deep inside. 

“'See about that,” he said, and then she felt his fingers pushing and curling against her G-spot, while he licked at her clit in hungry, fast strokes, like she was a melting ice cream cone and he was trying to collect every drop.

She found herself resisting the pleasure as it started to rock low in her core, fighting the waves as her legs began to shake with the effort. She kept trying to delay the orgasm but then she looked down and saw Daryl in the moonlight, worshiping her cunt with his mouth and hungrily fucking her with his fingers, and then she came, slowly and then all at once, like a wave breaking on the shore. 

She didn’t realize she was crying out his name the whole time, until she felt herself being spooned from behind as he pulled her against him, laughing a little while wrapping his fingers around her mouth. 

“Loud little kitten,” he said, kissing the shell of her ear, trying to act nonchalant but obviously radiating with masculine pride. 

She just breathed heavily into his hand, smelling her pussy on his hand, and that realization (that Daryl smelled like her now, her cunt juices all over his fingers) made her groan a little, and she rolled her hips back against his hard dick. 

He dropped his hands from her mouth and started sucking on her neck, his arm snaking around her waist and cupping her wet pussy. 

“You want me to fuck you, duchess?” he ground out, his words sounded gravelly from the heat and greed in his voice. 

She nodded, and he cupped her tighter. “Naw, say it,” he said. “Tell me what you want me to do your pussy.” 

She blushed and rubbed her ass back on his dick, twisting her head to look up and give him a pout. 

He just chuckled. 

She moved out of his grasp then, and turned around so that she was facing him on her side, and boldly reached down and grabbed his dick. 

“Daryl,” she said, lowly, kissing his bare chest as she let her fingers drift down his belly, until they finally slipped under his boxer-briefs and found his pulsing cock. “I want you to put your big cock inside of my pussy and fuck me so hard I see stars.” 

“Shit, girl,” he said, and when she looked up at his face, she saw that his eyes were tightly shut. He let out shuddering breaths while she grasped his cock and jerked it up and down, and then he said, “Ain’t got no condoms.” 

She said nothing and continued working on his cock, enjoying the feeling of his thick length in her hands, until he finally reached down and pulled down his briefs quickly. She sighed happily as she looked down at his erection, quickly moving down to put it in her mouth without warning, causing Daryl to gasp aloud as she took him as deep into her as she could. 

She let his cock fill her until she swore she could feel him in her throat, and then released him before she gagged. She started sucking him as hard as she could, using her other hand to massage and tug on his balls. 

He moaned, and she smiled as she went to work on giving him the best blowjob of his life, challenging herself to take him as deep into her throat she could, trying to remember all the tips her girlfriend had given her on how to deep throat a guy with a huge cock. Which Daryl definitely had, she thought, no surprise there considering the rest of him was built like a fucking god. 

“Fuck, girl,” he growled, his hands reaching down to grab and tug on her hair. “Gonna cum if you don’t stop.” 

She pulled off him for a second. “So cum,” she said. “I want to taste you.” 

He shuddered slowly at that, but shook his head. “Naw, I wanna fuck that sweet little pussy tonight.” 

And then he reached down and pulled her up by the armpits, laying her down on the bed next to him. He crawled on top of her then, using his legs to kick hers wide. 

She bit down on her lip and looked up at him, her breath quickening in excitement. 

“I ain’t got a condom,” he said again. 

She shrugged. “Just cum on me.” 

He moaned and reached down to kiss her, resting on his left forearm, as he reached down with his right hand to line up his dick with her wet, waiting cunt. 

“You sure you want this dick, girl?” he asked, pulling back from the kiss, and looking down at her darkly, just a hint of teasing in his flashing blue eyes. 

“Yes, daddy,” she whispered. 

“Well, shit,” he said, coming undone at that as he pushed his dick into her cunt all at once. She let out a pained moan and banged her head up against his shoulder. 

He stayed still for a second, and then as she breathed and laid back on the pillow, he started moving his hips, entering her even deeper. His dick filled her and she almost sobbed from how good it felt, how perfect his thick, hard cock felt inside of her. 

“Shittttttttt,” he cursed as he eased inside her soft, wet pussy, and when she looked up she could tell he was desperately trying not to lose control, his eyes shut tightly as he panted with the rhythm of his rocking hips. 

She smiled at that, and reached her arms around him, letting her fingernails scrape lightly as her legs wrapped around his lower back and locked on. She rocked with his movements, letting him even deeper inside, moaning his name as she felt him filling every part of her. 

He tried to slow down, and then looking down at her with ragged gasps, he said, “Girl, ya feel so…so…” 

His sentence died away and she reached up to nuzzle his neck, sucking and biting him while he fucked her harder and harder, his hips grinding her into the mattress until he quickly stopped, and then pulled out. 

Looking down at her with wild, lustful eyes, he stroked his hard cock with one hand, the other hand reaching out to grab her breast, and then as he started to cum in hot spurts on her lower belly, he moved his hand from her breast and stuck his thumb in her mouth, and she sucked it while he emptied his cock on her. 

Letting out a strangled gasp, he collapsed on the pillow next to her. 

“Fuck,” he said, shutting his eyes and resting his forearm on his forehead. 

She smiled and let her eyes shut too, feeling a weightless, weak feeling coming over her body. She let her hand graze down to her belly until she found the warm cum there, and then she rubbed her fingers in it and brought it up to her mouth and sucked it dry. 

When she opened her eyes, he was starting at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. 

“What?” she laughed. “I wasn’t just NOT gonna taste your cum.” 

He smiled and shook his head, then found his t-shirt on the bed, carefully wiping up her belly with it before tossing it across the room. Then he reached down to wrap his hand around the back of her neck, his eyes raking up and down her face as if he was searching for the right words to say. 

“Now you’re the one thinking too much,” she accused, running her fingers up his chest and then letting them stroke his stubbled jawline. “You don’t have to say you love me or anything like that, you know.” 

She had meant it as a joke to lighten the mood, but instead it had the opposite effect. His face suddenly looked gravely serious, and he stroked her cheek with his thumb before wrapping his big arms around her. Laying back on his pillow, he pulled her naked body so that she was now flush against him, her head on his chest and her naked pussy against his thigh as she curled her legs around his. 

“Don’t want you to worry no more, girl,” he said, sounding a little troubled as he rubbed her hands up and down her bare back, smoothing and tugging on her hair as he so often did now. 

She frowned, and breathed into his chest, “I just don’t want to lose you.” 

“You’re what matters, baby,” he said, sticking his hand in the back of her hair and pulling it so that she was looking up at him. “So you do what I say out there, y’hear? No matter what. Y’do exactly what I say?” 

“Okay, okay,” she said, smiling at his intense expression. 

“Don’t ‘okay’ me, girl,” he said, a little angrily. “If you don’t listen, I’ll…I’ll…

“What?” 

“Won’t lick your pussy no more, how ‘bout that?” he said loftily. 

She gasped and swatted his chest playfully. He caught her hand and held it in his, and she looked up at him again.

“Ya gotta listen, I mean it, now, baby,” he said, serious again. “Do whatever I say, no matter what.”

She locked into his gaze and nodded slowly, feeling a new fear growing in her belly. She didn’t know what he was driving at, but she didn’t like it. Still, she was exhausted and satisfied, and she decided she wouldn’t worry anymore tonight. 

“Goodnight, Daryl,” she said, kissing his chest. “My Daryl.” 

He smiled and wrapped her tighter against him. “Mmmhmmm. Always, girl.”


	23. Daryl’s big, hard dick problems

As Sara’s breathing slowed to a rhythmic murmur on Daryl’s bare chest, he finally let himself release a slow, shuddering breath. He raised the hand not wrapped around Sara’s back, and chewed on his thumbnail, a nervous habit he had since childhood. His body was exhausted, but his mind was working overtime. 

He felt like a bomb had gone off inside him. He thought fucking Sara would free him a little bit, that it would curb those pent-up feelings of desire, cure his obsessive feelings for her that had been trapped inside of him for months. Like fucking her would loosen a valve and release some of the steam inside of him. 

Not that he wanted to be ‘one and done’ with her. He didn’t want to just fuck her one time and forget all his feelings for her. But he just hoped to regain some normalcy, some control, some ability to think clearly when she was around. For nearly 4 decades, Daryl Dixon had kept his emotional life tightly in check. He had to. It was how he survived. It was how he was able to cope with the pain of a sadistic father and a drug-addicted brother and a mentally ill mother. How he was able to cope with the poverty and the self-hate and the overwhelming loneliness and fear. 

And, now, now, here in the middle of the end of the world, at the worst possible time to start feeling anything, he realized that he had completely lost any control or regulation over his emotions. All Sara had to do was look up at him with those big gray eyes and he became someone else entirely, some man he didn’t know, some man who was willing to be vulnerable, be gentle, be loving, be anything she needed as long as she needed it. 

So, yeah, he had hoped that fucking her would cure some of those feelings, set him straight and get some clarity and coldness back in his heart. Great plan, that was. He barely suppressed a groan as he thought about the way her big tits felt in his hands, the way she moaned and rubbed against his face while he was sucking on her sweet pussy, the way she tasted on his tongue, a tangy, salty taste that made his dick hard just thinking about it. 

And then, when her mouth was on him, working up and down as she looked up at him with adoring eyes, like sucking his cock was a privilege, like she was loving him in her mouth. Shit. He could barely control himself during that experience, the only thing that kept him going was how badly he wanted to be inside her pussy, to feel her from the inside out. 

He squinted his eyes shut at the memory, and reached down to feel his erection. Jesus. Her pussy felt just like he knew it would…. warm, and soft, and tight and welcoming, felt like home, like her cunt had been made for his cock, like her body was built for him. Shit. He had barely lasted more than five minutes, and the fact that he had been able to pull out in time was a miracle in and of itself. His dick throbbed against his palm as he remembered the way she had licked up his cum like it was candy. His cum in her sweet, pretty little mouth. 

Fuck, he needed to go to sleep before he got himself too worked up, but ‘course it didn’t help that her bare pussy was against his thigh right now, warm and inviting and…fuck, the devotion behind that action itself was overwhelming intimate, the way she was draped around him like he was something special and something safe. She trusted him enough to fall asleep like that, to fall asleep without any clothes on or covers on, trusted him enough to wrap her legs around him and drift away, with her pussy right there for him, just in his reach. 

Fuck. He gripped his dick harder, pulling up and down with long, slow motions. His eyes were shut, and he nearly jumped when he felt Sara stir next to him. He looked down and saw she was awake, but before he could even blush at what he had been doing, she gently pushed herself up and climbed on top of him. 

“Sorry, girl,” he said in a low voice, raising his arm on his forehead to shield his face a little while she hovered lightly on top of him, her cunt just inches away from his painfully hard cock. 

She smiled and her tongue came out to moisten her plump lower lip. “Sorry for what?” 

“Didn’t meant to wake ya…just couldn’t…needed--” 

She reached around behind her and grabbed his hard cock in her hands, stroking him while she maintained eye contact with him, a pretty little grin on her face. He let out a shuddering hum. 

“You should have woke me up,” she said, fingers grasping the base of his cock and then twisting and pulling upwards. “I specialize in these types of problems.” 

He snickered and peeked up at her from under his forearm, “What kind of problems?” 

“MMM…Daryl’s big, hard dick problems,” she said, and then gripping her thighs around him, she slowly lowered her cunt onto his cock, using her hand to guide him deep inside of her. 

His arm fell away from his face as he looked up at her. Her eyes were shut now, and she was holding onto his chest tightly, her expression intense and overwhelmed as she seemed to be struggling to catch her breath. 

He released a pained hum of his own as he finally felt his cock back in its home, back in Sara’s warm pussy, and he took this opportunity to just stare at her, to gaze at the fuckin perfect image of her sitting on top of his dick, her hair loose and wild around her, her mouth parted just slightly with pleasure, her lashes thick on cheeks as she squeezed her eyes tight. 

“You’re so beautiful, baby,” he said, reaching up to play with her tits while she slowly rocked her hips and let him move deeper into her.

She blushed a little and scoffed, but he grabbed her wrists on his chest with one hand and pulled her a little closer down towards him.

“Don’t,” he said, using his other hand to grip her hips and force her down a little harder on his cock. 

“Don’t what?” she breathed out raggedly, and he smiled as he saw her start to lose control as she rode him. 

As her cunt tightened around him, he lost his focus too and instead of replying he just wrapped both of his big arms around her so that she was now laid on top of him, her chest against his and her face buried in his neck as her hips moved faster. 

Her mouth was so close to his ear that he could hear everything, hear every change of breathing, hear her as she started to become almost frantic, moving against him in a desperate, nearly pained way, begging over and over, “Daryl, Daryl, Daryl, Daryl,” and he just gripped her tighter on top of him, using his hips to fuck deeper into her, saying “I gotchu, girl, I gotchu,” when she suddenly came, a sob nearly tearing out of her as she did so.

And that did it. As her cunt spasmed around him, he came as well, and as he pumped her full of him, he was too gone to even care about the risk. He felt every muscle in his abs tighten, and he growled “My girl,” aggressively. Then, his dick finally slowed and stopped, and she leaned forward a little, letting him out of her. 

He felt his cum leaking out of her pussy as she lay there weak and happy on top of him. 

Instantly guilt and fear radiated through him. “Fuck, girl,” he said, “I came in ya.” 

“I know,” she murmured carelessly, pushing herself up on his forearms on his chest to look at him, her face glowing and open as she gently kissed him on the lips.

He shifted back a little, a frown on his face. 

“Fuck,” he said, realizing how stupid he was. “If you get pregnant…” 

Her face darkened a little as she looked down at him. “What? You think there’s gonna be a shotgun wedding?” 

He frowned and gripped her ass with his hands, digging his fingers into the soft, supple flesh there. “That ain’t what I mean.”

“You worried about custody payments then?” she teased, and this time he smacked her ass a little, making her squeal a little in protest. 

He closed his eyes and grew serious. “Women die in childbirth, Sara,” he said. “It ain’t nothing to joke about. I can’t…we can’t ever do that again.” 

She hummed. “But I like your cum in me,” she said. “It makes my pussy very happy.” 

He harrumphed and opened his eyes, stroking his hands up and down her back, playing with her hair. “Don’t joke, baby. I mean it. Couldn’t ever…if you got pregnant, if that happened to you, ‘cause of me…shit, girl, I would be so scared. Can’t you see how Rick looks now? He knows what could happen to Lori.” 

She looked down at him with a surprised look on his face. 

“What?” he asked. 

“So, to be clear,” she said, “You’re not worried about me gaining weight, or suddenly being tied to you forever, but about me…dying during childbirth?” 

He frowned a little. “’Course, what the fuck you think?” 

She shook her head wordlessly.

“What?” he asked confused. “Listen, babies are cute and all, but I’ll be damned if I let anything happen to you, okay? So, no more fucking until I get condoms. Got it, girl?” 

She collapsed back on top of him. “Okay,” she said. “But just so you know I can’t get pregnant in my throat.” 

“Girl!” he said, laughing, smacking her ass again. “See, you ain’t a good girl ‘t all, I knew it.” 

“Mmph,” she said against his chest. “You’re good enough for both of us. I don’t deserve you.” 

He exhaled in shock at that. “You’re crazy, girl,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “I fucking love you.” 

Her body froze on top of him. Daryl almost bit his tongue. Why the fuck had he said that? What the FUCK? Was he trying to scare her away?

“I meant…” 

“It’s okay,” she said, easily. “What a man says after sex wouldn’t hold up even in a court of law. Now just go to sleep, okay?”

And she snuggled deeper against him and let out a low sigh. His eyes widened at the ceiling. Fuck, Fuck, Fuck. He couldn’t believe he had just said that. He never said “I love you” to ANYONE, let alone a woman, and now he had just unloaded his feelings on her like some kind of pathetic wuss. Like they fucked twice and now he’s acting like he owns her. She moved against him, and murmured something low and drowsy, and his heart clenched a little in his chest. But I do own her, he thought completely irrationally, or she owns me, and that’s kind of the same thing. That’s why he had said what he said to begin with, because she had commented that stupid thing about being ‘tied to her,’ as if that would be some kind of punishment instead of the best fucking thing that could ever happen to him. 

Fuck, Sara, I do love you, he wanted to say, but instead he just forced his eyes closed. Sleep, ya dumbass, he told himself, and for once, he listened.


	24. A Few Days Later

A FEW DAYS LATER

“You got to at least think of some possibilities, Rick,” Sara informed him. “You don’t want the baby to show up and not have at least SOME names to consider.” 

She was sitting shotgun beside Rick in the RV, feet propped up on the dash, while she carefully sliced a green apple and handed him bites. They had been on the road for days for now, and although they hadn’t had much luck finding any supplies, they also hadn’t run into any trouble, and Sara found that she was almost enjoying her time away from the farm. 

He shrugged and kept his eyes on the road. “I kinda like the name Daisy.” 

She smiled. “That’s pretty. But what if it’s a boy?”

“Richard, Jr.?” he suggested. 

“As in, little Dick?” she asked, crinkling her nose. 

He chuckled and took a big bite of the apple slice she handed him, licking his fingers as the juice dripped down. 

“Fuck you talkin’ bout little dicks for?” asked Shane, letting out a wide yawn as he stumbled to the front of the RV. He had been napping in the back bedroom because he had been up at 3 am, taking the last shift of the night watch. 

Sara rolled her eyes. “No one’s talking about your dick,” she said.

“I see Merle signaling up ahead,” said Rick. “Think he found a spot for us to pull over the night.” 

Merle and Daryl were in the pickup truck, leading the way and scouting out potential spots for scavenging, while Rick, Shane and Sara followed in the RV. It was the only arrangement that worked for everyone—if Shane and Daryl were in the RV together, they fought. If Shane and Merle were in the truck together, they fought. And only the Dixons knew how to drive a stick shift, so one of them always had be behind the wheel of the truck. 

This meant that Sara spent most of her time in the RV. On occasion, she rode ‘bitch’ in the pickup truck when she wanted time way from Shane, but Daryl preferred for her to stay in the RV, knowing that she was much safer there as he and his brother were the first line of defense when it came to walkers or any potential living threats, although they hadn’t stumbled onto any of those yet. 

All in all, thus far, it been an uneventful road trip. She ate Red Vines and painted her nails and read romance paperbacks and braided her hair in complicated plaits and talked endlessly to Rick, and when they did pull over to do a ‘raid’ on a house or building, Sara generally stayed back until Daryl came out and told her it was safe. 

So yea, basically, she felt like she was on a tour bus with the world’s oldest boy band, instead of trying to survive in a world of flesh-eating corpses. 

“Got a good spot for the night,” came Merle’s voice over the walkie-talkie next to Sara’s lap. “Gonna go make sure it’s cleared out.” 

Sara’s stomach dipped a little. She hated this part, the part when she knew Daryl was out in the wild and confronting god-knows-what. 

Rick picked it up and pushed the talk button. “Okay,” he said, “Fixin’ to pull over.” 

“I’ll go make some sandwiches for dinner,” said Sara, figuring she might as well do something useful. 

“Adam,” said Rick.

“Huh?”

“I like the name Adam for a boy,” he said. “Was my great grandpa’s name.” 

She hummed thoughtfully. “I like that.”

“Grape,” said Shane.

“Huh?” 

“Grape jelly. Last night you gave me strawberry. The seeds get in my teeth,” complained Shane. 

“Okay, your majesty,” she grouched, standing up and rolling her eyes. “You know your hands aren’t broke. You can make your own dinner as well.” 

“I want to give you a chance to feel useful,” he said magnanimously. 

“OhmyfuckingGod” muttered Sara, and she heard Rick chuckling at her as she gave Shane the finger and started slamming cupboards around in the tiny RV kitchen. 

“What?” whined Shane. “Am I such an asshole? Just cause I don’t like seeds?” 

He ducked his head just in time to miss the whizzing jar of strawberry jelly as it flew past his ear. 

***** 

A FEW MORE DAYS LATER

It was near-midnight, and Daryl and Sara were spread out on the roof of the RV on top of a red flannel blanket. It was Daryl’s turn for first watch, and as usual, Sara had insisted on staying with him. 

Shane and Rick were sharing the bed (head to toe, of course, which made Sara roll her eyes at their fragile masculinity), and Merle was on the couch. Although Sara was ostensibly on watch ‘with’ Daryl, he was the one who did the watching, and she generally would fall asleep an hour or so into his shift. When she tried to stay up longer than that, he would get frustrated with her and start threatening to send her down into the RV if she didn’t stop talking.

They had been on the road for almost a week now, and despite ransacking countless houses, cars and convenience stores, they had barely found anything to take home, barely found even enough to keep them going each day. Their gas was desperately low, and the limited rations of food they had brought from the Greene house was almost gone. Dinner tonight had been one package of peanut-butter crackers a piece. 

Sara had eaten half of her package slowly, deliberately, waiting until Daryl finished his before casually handing him hers and saying she was full. He scoffed at that, and tried to refuse it, but Sara was just as stubborn as he was, and in the end, she won out. It didn’t make any sense to her that she would eat as many calories as he did. He was about three times her size, not to mention he was exerting much more energy than her, what with killing walkers and breaking down doors and hauling boxes and saving her stupid ass all day. So, giving him 3 extra crackers? Felt like the least she could do. 

Daryl sat cross-legged on the blanket, his crossbow beside him, while Sara laid with her head in his lap. He was gently stroking her hair, and she knew he was waiting for her to drift off, but she felt too keyed up after the day they had. In the middle of raiding a small home off the highway, a family of walkers had suddenly come pouring out the attic, and one of them had nearly taken a chunk directly out of Merle’s neck. If it wasn’t thanks to perfect timing and Rick’s finely-honed shooting skills, Merle would be a corpse right now, and Sara couldn’t shake the eerie, sick feeling that had haunted her ever since she witnessed his narrow escape. 

She felt Daryl tugging her hair a little, not enough to hurt, just enough to get her attention. She looked up at him. 

“Stop thinking about it, duchess,” he said, reading her mind as usual. “My brotha’s fine.” 

Sara felt a wave of nausea, and she didn’t know if it was from not eating enough or from the stress of the past few days on the road, but the last thing she wanted to do right now was throw up. She closed her eyes and nuzzled her face into Daryl’s abdomen. 

“I just don’t see how we’re supposed to live like this,” she said, twisting her fingers in his shirt. “I can deal without having food. Without having electricity or hot baths or privacy. But I can’t understand how I am just supposed to accept that any minute, any one of us could die. That YOU could die. I don’t understand.”

“Shhh, girl,” he said, reaching a hand up her shirt to stroke circles around her belly. “I ain’t dying, okay? Gotta stop worrying about that all the time.” 

“I can’t!” she said. “You might as well as ask me to grow a third nipple.” 

He laughed at that, shaking his head. 

“Daryl?” she asked, sitting up so that she was now laying against his chest, nuzzling his neck.

“Girl, it’s late. Can’t be distracted.” 

“Please,” she asked, sucking a little on his neck, and then nibbling up to his ear. 

“Ain’t happening,” he said, even though she could feel his breathing was increasing. They hadn’t been intimate since the farm, just a handful of stolen kisses here and there, and Sara was dealing with a major case of blue ladyballs. But between not having condoms, never having privacy and the constant threat of walkers, there just never seemed to be the time or opportunity. Her rational mind realized this but her irrational pussy didn’t give a shit. 

“I promise I’ll go to sleep right after,” she said. 

Daryl quirked a doubtful eyebrow at that, and then grabbed her face, pulling her towards him by the back of her neck. 

He kissed her then, roughly, and seriously, massaging her tongue with his in a lazy but dominant way, in what Sara had learned was part of his signature kissing style. 

“No,” he said, pulling back and releasing her. “And if you keep bothering me, I’m gonna go wake those cops and tell ‘em you trying to rape me.” 

Sara let out an offended huff and swatted his chest. “Maybe I’ll go down there first, climb into bed with them, and go be the filling in that man-wich,” she said. 

This time it was Daryl’s turn to get rough, twisting her off his lap and flat on her back, using his weight to pin her down, his legs firmly holding hers still. She giggled hysterically as he started tickling her sides, “Whatchu say, girl? Huh? Whatchu sayin’? You tryin’ to screw around on me?”

“Daryl, stop, stop, stop, Daryl, please,” she said, laughing so hard she started hiccupping, tears coming out of her eyes. “I-I-I can’t breathe.” 

He let out a good-humored “Fuck” and eased up on the tickling, instead propping himself up on his forearms and gazing down at her. Using his thumbs, he wiped away the tears from her face, and then he kissed her again, lowering one hand to gently grip and massage her left tit as he did so. She moaned happily at that and he rubbed his cock on her, as if he was unable to resist humping her in this position, even if they were fully-clothed. 

“See, now look how distracted I am,” he scolded her, sitting up and grabbing his crotch, clearly trying to rearrange his hard-on in a more comfortable position. 

She pouted up at him. “Mean Daryl,” she said, rolling as far away from him as she could and facing her back towards to him, her arms crossed and her body rigid. 

“Yeah, wow, girl, yer really punishing me,” he said, mockingly. “Making me stare at your thick ass. Wow, this is heartbreaking.”

She ignored him. A few minutes passed. She closed her eyes. 

“Alright, girl, stop fucking around,” he said, his voice getting a little antsy. 

Another minute passed. 

She didn’t move a muscle.

“Girl, get back here in my lap,” he commanded, but under that blunt authoritative tone, his voice was low and needy. 

She smiled a little victoriously. 

“Girl,” he said again, but she was already moving, slowly now, as she was getting truly bone-weary and she collapsed back into his lap in her usual nightly position—face half-buried in his abs, her hands wrapped up in his T-shirt. She felt him pull the blanket around her shoulders and return to stroking her hair. 

She was nearly dozing off when she heard him softly murmur, “Sweet girl,” and she smiled her way into sleep.


	25. "You didn't listen to me"

At the end of a dead-end residential road, there was a large, tri-level brick house. The surrounding yard was unkempt and overgrown, like the rest of Georgia in the wake of the apocalypse, but to Sara, it only added to this particular home’s charm. There were large pine trees about 150 feet tall surrounding the house defensively, as if tree spirits found favor in the home and decided to form a ring of protection around it. 

The sign on the door said “Fáilte.”

“What kinda last name is that?” complained Shane.

“It’s not a last name, idiot,” said Sara, rolling her eyes, “It means ‘welcome’ in Gaelic.” 

Daryl raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m Irish,” she explained. “Hello? Red hair, freckles?” 

“Just stay behind me, girl,” he said, putting a bolt in his crossbow. “We been through the house once already but I still got a bad feeling about it.” 

“What’s the matter?” asked Rick, gazing around the leaf-covered front porch. “Looks like no one’s been in a long while.” 

“Yeah,” said Daryl. “Looks that way. Looks almost too much that way.” 

Shane eased open the door and drew his gun, and Sara felt a waft of warm air pour out of the home. 

“Stay behind me, girl,” repeated Daryl again, and Sara nodded tightly. 

The group entered the house slowly, Shane and Merle leading the way, Daryl and Sara in the middle, and Rick bringing up the rear. 

They entered a small, white kitchen with black countertops that were covered with newspaper and cardboard boxes, as if someone had been in the process of packing up dishes. The refrigerator door stood open and empty, a yawing black hole with nothing remaining inside except a nearly-empty bottle of Heinz ketchup.

Continuing through the house, they passed by a dining room carpeted in turquoise wallpaper and white-and-green floral wallpaper. Large framed family portraits hung on the walls. Whenever they raided a house, Sara always made it a point to look at the photos of the family who lived there, even though it often had a melancholy, negative impact on her. But, she felt it was disrespectful otherwise, to just enter someone’s home and strip it blind, without even being willing to bear witness to the people who have lived, loved and fought and cried and maybe even died there. 

In these portraits, Sara found herself looking at a family of three dark-haired, blue-eyed children, all freckles and missing teeth and pale skin, along with a red-haired mother with a wide smile, and a serious but kind-eyed father. They looked like a happy family, like the kind of family you would have wanted to be part of, if you saw them eating dinner at a restaurant or playing soccer together in the park. The kind of family you might have stared at a little enviously, thought about later in bed when your own mother was nowhere to be found and your father was a total mystery. 

She was so mesmerized by the pictures that she didn’t pay attention to the group leaving the dining room and heading down the hall, until she heard Daryl cluck his tongue at her impatiently. He always on edge on her when they were exploring a new location, and she knew not to take it to heart, that his gruffness was actually anxiety for her safety. 

She followed him obediently, but she caught him give her a strange look and then glance back at the portraits, as if he was trying to figure out what she had been thinking. 

The hallway led to a rose-and-gold bathroom, and a bedroom in the same shades of pink. A white bunk bed stood in the corner, stuffed animals lined up neatly and the beds made properly. Sara left her fingers trail on the rose bedspread on the top bunk. She started to understand what Daryl meant about something being ‘off’ in the house. Everything seemed untouched and still, but it was also clean. No cobwebs. No dust. No stale, musty odor in the air as there was in most of these homes. 

She heard footsteps above her, and realized that Shane and Merle had moved upstairs already. 

Daryl snapped his fingers at her, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. In fact, he looked so cute staring there with that grumpy little expression on his face that she wrapped her arms around his torso from behind and gave him a quick squeeze. 

He harrumphed at that, and rubbed one of her arms with his free hand. “C’mon, keep up,” he scolded her, but his voice was tender under its raspiness. 

“Check this out, man!” She heard Shane call from up the stairs, and Rick moved quickly, taking the stairs a couple at a time. Daryl followed suit, and Sara climbed the white carpeted stairway behind him. 

“Look at all this ammo!” she heard Shane say victoriously, “Fuck yea!” 

Over the landing, Sara saw the men rummaging through a chest at the end of a king-size bed, in a room that must have been the master bedroom. Sara was about to enter the big bedroom as well when something to the left caught her eye, a half-shut door that led to a sunny alcove lined with bookshelves. 

She smiled and quickly walked to the little room, opening the door all the way to see a small, turret-shaped room, large enough only for a windowseat and a small writing desk in the corner. Her mouth dropped open as she saw the full, crowded bookshelves that were easily nine feet tall. 

Jackpot, she thought. 

Happily humming to herself, she let her fingers run lightly over the titles, a good collection of classic literature and modern finds, as well as young adult books which she knew would make Beth happy. 

She picked up one with a particularly compelling title, and eased down onto the plush Oriental rug, letting out a sigh as she settled on the soft floor. 

Within minutes, she was in a ‘book coma’ as her mom called it, and she didn’t hear the man climb out of the windowseat behind her. She didn’t hear him walk over to her, she didn’t see the look of murderous, violent rage he gave her, she didn’t smell the sweat staining his flannel shirt. 

No, she didn’t notice any of that, not until she felt the gun at her temple and the feeling of her stomach drop forty stories inside of her. 

Well, shit. 

***

“Get up,” he said flatly, and Sara felt the book slip through her fingers as her body went numb with fear. 

She managed to find her feet underneath her somehow, and unsteadily obeyed the man. 

“Should fucking kill you right here, right now,” he said. “Stupid fucking bitch.” 

She gulped. 

“But first let’s find your piece of shit friends, okay? Walk,” he ordered. 

She closed her eyes desperately and nodded. 

As she began walking to the master bedroom, she saw Daryl exiting the room anxiously, looking for her up and down the hallway, and then his eyes locked to her and the man holding a gun to her head.

Even from several feet away, she swore she could see his eyes darken. His fingers gripped around the bow, but the man simply said “Uh-uh. Down, now. Or I kill this bitch.” 

Daryl raised his hands defensively and slowly eased the bow down, and as he did so, Rick came out of the room behind him. Taking in the scene, he instantly pointed to his gun and made a show of lowering it the ground as well.

“Look, man,” said Rick. “We didn’t know anyone was here. We don’t want any trouble. We’re good people.” 

“Good people!” scoffed the man, and Sara felt his fingers dig into her bicep even harder as he gave her a shake. “Do good people take what doesn’t belong to them? Do good people steal from their neighbors? Do good people kill innocent children?” 

“Hey, man,” said Rick, a gentle coaxing tone in his voice. “We never killed any children.” 

The man didn’t appear to listen, and instead kept repeating in a horrified, offended tone, “You think that’s okay? You think that’s good?” 

“We don’t steal,” said Rick. “We thought this place was abandoned. We don’t want to hurt anyone, especially kids, okay?”

Sara was only half-able to listen to the conversation, as her breath was coming in short, shallow gasps and it was hard to focus. She kept her eyes trained on Daryl, and he did the same, his large arms still in a defensive pose as he kept his eyes on her and the gun on her head. 

“Go then,” said the man. “Get out.” 

“Gladly, gladly,” said Rick, “That’s fair. Just give us the girl and we’ll go.” 

The man hesitated for a second and looked at Sara, and then she felt him pull her back a little against him. 

“Reminds me of Keri a little bit,” he said, in a odd, distracted tone, as if he was speaking to himself. 

“Fuckin’ let her go, man!” yelled Daryl, and Rick shot him an angry look as the sudden command seemed to incense the man behind Sara, causing him to grip her hair tightly and twist her face back to him. 

“This red hair,” he said, “Just like Keri.” 

Rick went back to using that friendly, warm tone. “Listen, my name is Rick. And I’m a dad. To a little boy. And another on the way. And Sara, that girl you’re holding, she belongs with us. We need her back before we can go, okay? That’s all.” 

“I had a little boy, too,” said the man suddenly, wrapping his hair a little tighter around Sara’s strands and causing her to choke out a cry. “I had two little girls and a boy. I had a wife. I had a dog. Guess what I got now?” 

Rick shook his head wordlessly. 

“I said, guess what I got now, motherfucker?” yelled the man, jamming the pistol a little harder into Sara’s temple as tears began to stream silently down her face. 

“I got four dead bodies in my basement, and they’re hungry,” he said, “You don’t want my babies to be hungry, do ya? You want to make sure my babies get fed, right, Rick?” 

Daryl let out an enraged growl as the man started dragging Sara by her neck, the gun still at her temple, as he pulled her down the hallway and away from Rick and Daryl. 

“Let go of me, asshole,” she swore, using her hands to grab at his neck as she felt her airwaves tighten. 

A gunshot went off, and Sara suddenly crashed backwards on the floor on top of the man, rolling off him with a scream as she felt warm blood dripping down the back of her neck. She looked down and saw him laying on the floor with a bullet in his head. 

At the other end of the hallway stood Merle with a gun in his hand. Sara left out a relieved sigh, and then she felt Daryl picking her up off the ground and collecting   
her in his arms. 

“Get the fuck out of here,” he said to Rick, giving a grateful nod to Merle, who just shrugged in response. 

“Heard y’all talking,” he said. “Came up the other stairway. Fuck, he really got some dead kids in the basement? Guess you was right about this place after all, man.” 

Daryl didn’t say a word, and instead just clutched Sara to him, walking out of the house and leaving the ‘Failte’ sign banging in the breeze behind them. 

***

“You didn’t listen to me,” was all he said to Sara as he carried her into the RV bedroom, and she blushed a little. “You didn’t listen to me.” 

She sensed that he was scared and upset, and possibly even a bit enraged with her. 

“I saw…books,” she said weakly, offering him a weak smile as she settled against the pillows. 

He sat down on the bed and scrubbed his face with his hands. “Thought you were gonna die just now, girl. Ain’t funny,” he said, and his voice was hollow. 

“I’m sorry, Daryl,” she said, scooting forward on the bed to run her long fingernails up and down his back. And she was, really. As scared as she had been during the experience, she had seen Daryl go through it as well, and she had never seen such helpless rage and terror on his face before. 

“Woulda been all my fault,” he said, and he sounded like he was drowning in self-hatred. “Didn’t check the house good enough. Didn’t notice you wandering off. Almost got you killed.” 

Her heart twisted a little at that. “It wasn’t your fault—

He interrupted her. “I need a smoke,” he said, “Stay in here.” 

She wanted to reach out for him, to comfort him somehow, but she just nodded and laid down on the bed. 

And when she closed her eyes, she thought of four hungry corpses chomping their jaws and waiting for their dinner.


	26. Not-So-Super Walmart

TWO WEEKS LATER 

Sara was laying in a shivering huddle on the floor of a double-wide trailer. Her jaw was racked with pain, and she could feel a swollen bruise forming on her lower cheek and jawbone. She pressed her small, warm fist to the bruise in desperate need for some relief, to no avail. Instead, she focused on surveying her surroundings. 

She was on top of a sleeping bag in the carpeted living of the mobile home, a narrow galley kitchen behind her, and a single bedroom and bathroom to the other end of the trailer. Part of the bedroom had burned away, so Merle had shut the door and barricaded it with a turned-over dresser and bookcase to keep any walkers out. 

The bathroom was filthy, but it had some useful items—soap, razors, washcloths, lotion and even a few packages of wet wipes. There were some scented candles which they were able to use for light, and some ratty blankets at the top of the only closet in the place. 

So while the busted-up mobile home might have seen better days, it was a mild relief to Merle and Sara when they stumbled upon the trailer late last night in the middle of a torrential rain-pour. 

But, once the trailer was secure and they collapsed on the floor, the silence suddenly seemed deafening. 

Sara looked at Merle as he pulled a crumpled cigarette box from his back pocket. 

“Go the fuck to sleep,” he said to her.

And miraculously she did. 

***

The pair had been separated from Rick, Shane, and Daryl when they were fleeing from an unexpected herd, and though Merle had said nothing since they arrived in the trailer, besides ordering Sara to sleep, Sara knew he was wracked with guilt and rage over what happened. 

It all started early yesterday morning when they came across a Super Walmart off the highway. It seemed like it was probably too good to be true, and considering the high number of insatiable walkers milling in the parking lot, Daryl wanted to skip it. 

“We ain’t got the gunpower, man,” Daryl had said, patting an arm on Rick’s shoulder and trying to convince him to move on, but the anxious father had other things on his mind. 

“Dar, we could be talking diapers, clothes, food…medicine! They have a pharmacy in there,” disagreed Rick vehemently. “Yeah, it won’t be easy, but hell, there HAS to be a way. There HAS to be. We need this. I need this. My baby needs this.” 

Merle, who was casually smoking a cigarette against the back of his truck while they looked down at the Walmart from a safe distance away, muttered, “Shit, baby bro, I ain’t never known you to be a pussy.” 

Shane laughed appreciatively at that. “Rick’s right. If we make this work, we can be set for the rest of the winter, maybe even longer. We could fill up the back of Merle’s truck and the RV besides. This could be what fucking keeps us alive, man.” 

Daryl hissed down at the ground angrily, throwing an anxious look back at Sara, who was nursing a bottle of lukewarm water and trying to bite her tongue, although she was itching to give her two cents. 

Hard as she had tried to keep up the last couple weeks, she secretly feared that she was slowing the group down. There had been lots of close calls, and many more walkers than she had seen in early days on her own. Her usual method of running and hiding didn’t line up with the guys’ method of killing and bashing everything in sight. And even though she had a butcher’s knife strapped to the waistband of her jeans (courtesy of Daryl who refused to give her a gun), she was too scared to get close to a walker to use it. 

“Need to give ya girl a gun,” Shane had complained loudly when Sara had hesitated to use her knife to kill yet another walker who came close to her. 

“She ain’t never shot no gun before, so then this ain’t no time to start,” said Daryl. “Likely shoot her eye out. Needs to learn how first.” 

Sara had blushed at Shane’s criticism, but Daryl had come up behind her and said lowly, “Don’t listen to him, you’re good…Besides, yah ain’t gotta worry. I’m gonna keep you safe, and Merle’s got his eyes on ya too. No dead thing—or living thing—is getting to you without getting through us first.” 

She had simply nodded at that, completely unquestioning, and utterly believing in his ability to keep her from harm. Her only worry was that, in doing so, he would put himself or even the others in harm as a result. 

Which apparently was what was happening right now. Had she not been there, she knew that Daryl would have wanted to go for broke and try the Super Walmart, or at least get a little closer and check it out more. She knew that he would risk life and limb to get supplies for their people, and that he was only hesitating because of her…meaning that Lori and her baby, not to mention all the others, could suffer as a result of his affection for her and his anxiety for her safety.

And she couldn’t allow that. 

So, finally, she decided to speak up, “I think we should go,” she said quietly, so quietly Shane barked out “Huh?” earning himself a glare from Daryl, who came over and stood beside her and crossed his arms. 

“I think we should try and get inside,” she said, afraid to meet Daryl’s eyes, knowing he wouldn’t like what she was saying. “We ought to at least try…I mean, we have to try, right?”

The more she spoke, the shakier her voice got. She felt out of her element and was embarrassed weighing in, feeling like her opinion wasn’t really desired. As if sensing her unease, Sara felt Daryl’s hand come to rest on the small of her back. 

“Too dangerous, girl,” he said, looking down at her with worried eyes peeking out from behind his long bangs. “There’s too many dead. It’s too risky. After what happened the other day, I can’t…risk it.” 

Although his tone was strained, his hand on her back was gentle. It had taken him a couple of days to go back to his normal self after the incident at the house on the dead-end street, but gradually he started smiling and joking with her again, and it was only now that she saw that old fear returning to his eyes. 

“You would go if I wasn’t here, Daryl,” she said, and he flinched a little at that, then shrugged. 

“Please don’t make me be the reason Lori and the others suffer,” she said. “Don’t…I want to do something useful for once, I want to…not always be the one who’s a mess.” 

And that begging, self-hating tone in her voice must have pushed him over the edge, because he turned around to the others and snapped, “Fine. You all wanna go so bad? Let’s fucking go, then.” 

At first, it seemed like it was going to be okay. They created a small fire in one the abandoned cars in the Walmart parking lot in order to distract the walkers, and in doing so, they were able to thin the herd quietly and stealthily. They made enough of a hole to find their way to an employee entrance of the building, and as Merle worked on jimmying the lock, Sara found herself nearly fainting from fear. What would they find inside? How many dead? How many…living? 

Reading her body language even with his arms tensed as he lifted his heavy bow at the ready, Daryl clicked his tongue at her and motioned with his head for her to come closer to him. 

“You listen to me while we’re in there, no matter what. I fuckin' MEAN it, this time,” he ordered, his breath warm against her neck. “Don’t do nothing, nothing without my say so, girl, got it? As long as we’re in there…I am in charge.”

She nodded quickly, thinking he didn’t have to tell her twice, she trusted his instincts above all else, especially, in a life-or-death situation, but he demanded, “Swear to it!”, an edge to his voice she had never heard before. 

Eyebrows raising, she nodded frantically, and whispered “Swear it,” and then clutched her fingers near his waist, gripping around his t-shirt. The feeling of her holding on to him seemed to release something inside of the hunter, and he let out a small sigh and cast his eyes down on her briefly, letting more tenderness shine through them than Sara would have ever expected from such a “hard-ass” like Daryl. 

It made her want to melt fully into him, to feel his body on top of her, to see the way his eyes would sharpen and then soften when he came, but she was shocked out of her reverie when Merle bit out, “Open, le’s go, gang.” 

It was dark as night in the Walmart, and they had only their flashlights to guide them. The smell inside of it was unbelievable – months worth of rotting food combined with the unmistakable smell of death, made ten times by the worse by the extreme heat of the shut-up store, and it was so intense Sara had to resist the urge to pull Daryl right back the way they came. 

The sound of wheels behind her made her jump, then she realized Shane and Merle had two jumbo-sized carts. 

“Come on, sugartits,” Merle teased. “Bet you know your way around a shopping cart better ‘n we guys do.”

“Fuck off, Merle,” she said, giving him the finger, but in truth she appreciated him lightening the mood as always with his ever-present politically-incorrect humor. 

The group worked quickly, Rick and Daryl taking the lead and cutting down stray walkers, most of them still in their blue smiley-face employee vests, while Merle and Shane took up the rear. Sara followed Merle’s instructions, although it irked her feminist sensibilities, she had to admit that she was an expert shopper and she easily could navigate the aisles and find things they needed. Before long, they had two carts filled with non-perishable food, formula, bandages, tampons, pads, diapers, toilet paper, as well as things like lotion, chapstick, soap and shampoo. 

Merle raised his brows at the “girly” stuff but Sara noticed he helped himself to several cases of liquor as well as some condoms. When he turned his head, she made sure to toss a few more boxes of those in the cart as well. 

They had nearly finished except for the most important stop: The pharmacy, which was located at the back of the store, behind several overturned shelves and carts. 

Looking towards it filled Sara with foreboding, and she knew Daryl felt the same way, because suddenly he was right beside her, rubbing his hand on her lower back. 

She said nothing but her eyes must have looked terrified, because Daryl whispered down to her, “Ya being so brave, duchess. Real proud of ya.” 

Hearing that made Sara’s lips quiver, and she felt the urge to start crying. 

“Thank you,” she said, dipping her head down and resting her forehead against his large, warm bicep. She noticed that Daryl always ran hot, but here in this closed-up store, his body felt like a brick oven. 

“Hmm,” he hummed in response, and she could tell he was equal parts happy with her response as he was concerned. 

“C’mon, lovebirds,” groused Rick good-naturedly, in high spirits from their run thus far. “Let’s finish this and get home and celebrate.” 

What happened next was a blur. They heard a loud growl of a walker behind him, and Shane reacted instantly, trying to shoot it in the head, but his sudden action made him drop his flashlight. As it rolled down the aisle, Sara saw that there were more dead coming up to their left, at least 15, including a small one in a Hello Kitty t-shirt. 

Her mouth gaped open, and she felt Daryl grab her arm tightly, ripping her out of her trance and forcing her down the aisle, straight to the pharmacy. She heard the men behind her popping off rounds as they ran, but an “OH, SHIT!” from Daryl, made her look straight ahead and realize…they were running straight into the waiting jaws of at least 40 walkers. 

“My god,” was all she could whisper, and she knew this was it, they were going to die.

But even as the walkers from both directions got closer, Daryl stayed calm. “UP, now,” he said, grabbing her abruptly and pushing her up on the shelves, pushing her on her butt to get her to climb faster. The other men followed suit, everyone trying to get to higher ground as fast as they could, but when Shane pulled himself up, a groaning noise beneath them made them all go wide-eyed and still. The shelving was giving out beneath them. 

“Everyone, move!” shouted Rick, and then, taking the lead, he began leaping across the tops of the shelves, sending items flying loudly and attracting even more walkers. The rest gingerly followed suit, the heavier men like Shane and Merle losing their footing several times and having to grab on with their arms to find purchase and pull themselves back up. 

For her part, Sara moved with sure, light feet, and she thanked her decades-long yoga practice for keeping her flexible and graceful. She was so fast that she soon gained on Rick, surprised to find that he was sweating and gasping for breath, while she felt weirdly numb and even relaxed. Fucking brain chemicals, she thought to herself.

Sara suddenly realized that while she was bounding like a deer through the woods, Daryl had been making slow, stymied progress as he traversed over the shelves, as he stopped every several feet to release several bolts into the walkers which were the closest to them. 

Watching in horror, she started screaming for him to jump and forget the walkers, and then something else caught her eye…a back door which she assumed was probably for deliveries, half-propped open by a fallen cart and several dead bodies. 

“Rick, look!” she cried, pointing to the door. His eyes lit up, and he joined Sara in screaming, “Guys! There’s a door over here, move!” 

Suddenly a crash alerted Sara to the fact that several of the shelves had now collapsed under the unsteady, grasping weight of the survivors, and her eyes instantly flew to find Daryl in the debris. 

She breathed a sigh when she saw he was alive and cussing, but then she realized he was pinned under a heavy shelf, his legs beneath the heavy metal frame as he desperately wrestled to get free. The walkers were gaining on them now, and Shane, Merle and Rick’s bullets were only keeping them just barely at bay. 

“DARYL!!!!!!!!!!!!!” she screamed, her voice sounding wild and broken, as she leaped back the way she came and clambered down to his side, calling his name all the way. 

“GIRL! No, run!” he cried, as she tried in vain to the lift the giant shelving with her bony arms. 

When he saw she wasn’t listening at all, he started to call for Merle, “Bro! Merle! Man, get her out of here! Get her the fuck out of here or I swear to God, I’ll…” 

As Merle made his way to his brother, calling out reassurance, a obese walker suddenly launched out of the darkness and began crawling its way up the shelf which   
lay on top of Daryl. 

“NO!” screamed Sara. “NO, FUCK!” 

And without thinking or a moment’s hesitation, she grabbed her knife from her jean waistband and she launched herself at the big dead thing, sinking her knife into the crown of his giant bald head as hard as she could. 

No sooner had she removed her knife from the mushy pulp, but another two walkers stumbled at her, two women who were moving much faster than Sara’s first kill. She vaguely heard Daryl screaming at her as he wrestled violently under the shelving, but she didn’t pay attention, instead sinking her knife into the face of the first woman, and then the crown of the second, cussing a blue streak the whole time. 

She felt a strong arm grasp her bicep and lift her fairly off the ground, and she turned to see Merle. 

“Baby bro says ya goin’ now,” he said, wrenching her away from the shelves even as Sara kicked against him and reached down for Daryl.

“You can’t leave him! He’ll die! HE’LL DIE!” She screamed, kicking and hitting against Merle as he finally tossed her over his shoulders and ran for the door. 

From her position on Merle’s retreating back, she saw that Rick and Shane were trying to lift the shelf off Daryl, and she cried out, “THEY NEED OUR HELP!” 

She managed to loosen herself from Merle’s hold, falling straight on her arm with a mournful howl as she hit the hard tile. But as she was about to throw herself into a sprint and race back to Daryl’s side, Merle spun her back around…and then clocked her straight across the face with a fist that hit her delicate cheekbone like a runaway freight train.

She barely had time to feel the pain before everything went black and silent.


	27. Noble

When she woke again, she was being jostled relentlessly, her head aching and nausea flashing hot and powerful inside of her. Realizing she was hanging over Merle’s back, she gasped out weakly, “Havta—be sick.”

But Merle apparently didn’t hear her over his labored breathing and the crunching of leaves under his heavy boots, so his pace didn’t halt until he heard the vomiting behind him, and then she heard him say, “AW, shit,” as Sara spewed bile all over the ground and the back of his jeans.

Luckily for Merle, Sara hadn’t eaten much in the last several hours, except half a Luna bar which she had split with Daryl (although he had tried to insist the whole thing). The memory of that, of Daryl trying to pretend he didn’t want any of the bar just for the sake of her having a little more to eat, made her stomach grip even more violently. Merle helped her to her knees and gripped back her tousled red hair in his fist as she cried and puked and cried and puked until she was just dry-heaving hysterically on the forest floor.

Finally finished she collapsed onto her back, rolling away from her vomit and rubbing her hands across her face as if trying to wake herself from sleep. 

“Git up,” said Merle. “Gotta keep moving, and thank god you’re awake now, cuz’ you’re fuckin’ heavier than you look. Think it’s all that damn hair.”

Sara didn’t move an inch and instead curled into herself, her mouth twisting in a grimace. 

“How---Why---Daryl—

Merle interrupted her. “He told me to get you out there. That’s what I did,” he said flatly. “Don’t make me regret it.” 

She looked up at him in rage. Finding energy she didn’t know she had, she launched herself at the redneck, pounding small fists all over his broad chest as she screamed at him, “HOW could you! You left him to DIE! You let him DIE! He’s your brother! Your little brother! What’s wrong with you, asshole!? He needed you! You stupid fucking selfish asshole!” 

Merle stood there and took the beating without saying a word, letting her pummel him without barely flinching. Finally, she wore herself down a little, and then realized there was warm blood coming down her face. 

A guilty look coming across his face, Merle said, “Busted your face a little back there. Shoulda listened to me when I said to go, though.” 

She shook her head in disbelief. “Why? Why would you do this? Why wouldn’t you let me help him?”

He scoffed, and then in a high-pitch drawl, he unleashed at her, “’Cause he’s my brother, honey. And I ain’t spent much of my life being good to him, taking care of him like I oughta. So he asked me to do this thing for him, before we even left the farm, he said if something went…went bad, like it did back there, to get you out of there and not ask any questions. Not to wait for nothing. And for once I listened. I did what he needed. You ain’t like it? Tough shit, bitch!” 

Sara’s mouth dropped open. 

“Now come on, we need to find shelter, night’s coming,” he said, turning on his heel and walking off. “Move.”

When her feet stayed locked in place, he spun back at her and pointed his gun at her. “Listen, girl, I just lost my brother back there ‘cuz of your ass, so don’t test me for one more second or you will find out just how big this bad wolf’s teeth really are.” 

Submitting out of pure exhaustion and pain, Sara began to shuffle towards him, clutching her belly and feeling her head swim with the images of Daryl pinned and set upon by walkers, Daryl screaming at her to go, Daryl making sure she was cared for even up to the very end….Daryl…my god, Daryl, no, this can’t be real, she thought in desolate, senseless terror. 

Sobbing, aching, and broken beyond healing, Sara walked on.   
___

Days had passed since they had been attacked by the herd at the Super Walmart. Merle and Sara spent the first two nights at the ransacked trailer they found, not speaking to each other, and not acknowledging the other’s existence, except for when Merle forcibly cleaned and bandaged Sara’s cheek. 

When Merle decided they needed to move on, he only pointed to Sara’s bag and gruffly nodded his head to the door.   
Fine with me, thought Sara, don’t want to speak to you either. 

“Gonna try to go back the way we came a little ways,” he had announced several miles into their trek. “It’s risky, but if we can get back to the truck, we can maybe get back to the farm, if we lucky and find enough gas along the way. Otherwise….could take weeks or more to get back to Hershcel’s.” 

Her stomach had jolted inside of her at the thought of going back to the place where Daryl had spent his last hours. 

“Do you think…Rick and…

“Do I think the pigs left my brother? What you think, girl? Is water wet?” demanded Merle. 

“But they were trying to help him, I saw—

“Yeah, you saw them put in a half-assed effort, but lemme tell you, soon as the walkers came in closer, and they saw us out that door safely, you best believe they followed suit. Probably waited it out in the woods like us for a bit, but they maybe headed back to the RV already. I would have moved sooner, but I was scared of what you might do.” 

“What do you mean?” she asked. 

“Didn’t want to take you back to the scene, and have you flip shit on me and bring the herd back our way,” he said, as if the answer was obvious. “Needed to get you calmed down and thinking straight. Stead of crying and saying my brother’s name for hours on end.” 

Sara felt the urge to sob, but she heard a brokenness in his voice she hadn’t heard before. He lost his brother, all he had in this world, because he was protecting her like Daryl had demanded of him. It couldn’t have been easy. 

“Look, honey,” Merle said, stopping in front of her and holding her by her biceps. “I’m sorry I hit ya and said those evil things to ya. I know you’re hurting real bad. And I respect the hell out of ya for not wanting to leave my baby brother’s side, even though you were fixin’ to get killed as a result.” 

Sara found her face crumpling at that and she laid her cheek against Merle’s chest. “Don’t apologize to me…I know why you did it. To make his last moments happy. Happy as they could be, I mean.” 

“Th’as right, sugar,” said Merle, fairly sighing in relief. “If he seen you die right in front of him, or knew it was about to happen after he left this earth…I couldn’t let that happen. I had to give him something, one last good thing in this shitty world he got stuck with.” 

Sara wrapped her arms around Merle’s lower torso and gave him a firm hug. 

“You’re a noble man, Merle,” she said, reaching up and kissing him on the cheek. 

He scoffed at that and looked at her like she was crazy. 

“You realize ah’m the same guy who gave you that massive shiner and called you a bitch, right?” 

“I know why you did all that, Merle,” she said. “To protect me. To protect me to make Daryl happy. You put his happiness before everything, even your own desire and need to fight for him. Not many men could do that.”

Merle’s face looked haunted. “Never should have goaded him into going in that place, called him a pussy.” 

It was Sara’s turn to frown. “He went in there because of me. If anyone killed him, it was me.”

“Honey, that ain’t--

She pulled back and shook her head. “Please, not now…let’s just keep going, find that damn truck.” 

He nodded in agreement and they walked in silence for many hours, trekking back the way they came from the night they fled the Super Walmart. Merle was on edge, Sara could sense it, and she knew he was terrified that the herd was still nearby, or that their noise had brought even more walkers along with them. 

When they both smelled smoke, Merle said, “That could be the car we lit on fire.” 

“But it rained?” asked Sara. 

“Could still be smoldering, especially with all those cars and gas…” he said. “We need to start being careful now. Stay on your toes. And don’t hesitate for nothing. Kill anything that moves.”

Normally such a direction would scare Sara and make her go white with fear, but she was passed caring about her finer sensibilities now. Walkers took Daryl from her. She almost hoped some would come out of the trees. She would rip their fucking guts out and spit on their decaying flesh. 

“Once we get you back to the farm, I’m heading back out,” said Merle suddenly. “Ain’t staying there, especially if the pigs are there.”   
Sara’s mouth gaped. “What do you mean?” She demanded. 

“I promised Daryl I would get you home safe,” said Merle. “My promise ends there.” 

“But, there’s Andrea…”

“Look, honey, this ain’t fucking Romeo and fucking Juliet, okay? She was jus’ a good lay,” he said, his voice hoarse and angry. “Need to focus on what matters. Killing. Staying alive. Killing some more. Maybe if Daryl had done that, hadn’t of fell for you like a sack of bricks—

He stopped himself but it was too late.

“You mean, if he never met me, he would still be alive?” she asked. “Because, don’t worry, I know that. I have thought it a million times. And, as for you leaving the farm? I think that’s grand.” 

So much for our truce, thought Sara, following a now-silent Merle as they creeped up to the silent highway. They walked in silence up the grassy overpass, getting closer to where they had left the truck and RV. 

“Hands up, asshole,” said a voice from behind an overturned semi, and Sara froze until she saw a beaming Shane step out from behind it. 

“The fuck you two been?” he asked. “’Bout to get sick of waiting for y’all.” 

Merle scoffed and shot Sara an ‘I told you so’ stare. “See, sugar? Pigs serve and protect…themselves.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Shane. “And the fuck happened to her eye?” 

“Yeah?” asked another rough, drawling voice. “Whaddya do to my girl, brother?” 

Merle grabbed Sara as she passed out, catching her just half a second before her head would have met the blacktop.


	28. Strawberry or Chocolate

When Sara woke up, she had the strange sensation that her body was moving. Frowning, she blinked her eyes open painfully, and almost instantly realized that she was in the back bedroom of the R.V. The realization nearly took her breath away, as it made her recall the events that occurred right before everything went dark. 

In a desperate, lost tone, she let out a strangled cry, “Daryl!?”

“Shh, girl, gonna wake the dead,” she heard his scratchy voice say humorously, and she rolled over in bed frantically, to see that he was holding her head in his lap, smiling down at her and pulling her hair through his fingers. 

She sat up with a sob and threw her arms around his neck, clutching her skinny arms so tightly around him that she could feel her muscles would be sore tomorrow. 

She wanted to question him, asked what happened, but for now she just cried, whole-body, shivering cries, running her hands up and down his face and body as if checking he was truly real. 

“I thought—I thought---I---Daryl—Oh, Jesus---Daryl,” was all she could get out, and even that was just a jumble of half-coherent words. 

“Shh, shh,” he soothed her, no longer smiling as he worriedly tried to get her to calm down. “Don’t want you passing out again on me. Just breathe, okay? Slow down and breathe?” 

Her hands shook violently as she put her head in her hands and tried to obey him, but the action of moving her hands off sparked off another chain of anxiety inside of her and she went back to clutching him and crying again. 

“Damn it, babygirl,” he said with concern, and then picking her up off his lap, he laid her down on the bed, and before she could protest, he was suddenly laying almost entirely on top of her, his weight pressing down on her, his legs holding her legs tight and open on either side of his, her arms wrapped around his lower back like he was the only thing keeping her from falling off the face of the earth. 

His chest almost crushing her as he propped himself up on his forearms with her head in between, he began stroking her cheeks and her hair with pressured strokes.

“I’m here,” he said hoarsely. “I’m here. Ya feel I’m here, now? Ain’t want you to cry no more. Ok? You mind me. Breathe now.” 

Sara found that his weight on top of her was grounding, that it helped her to stop feeling like she was going to break into a million pieces, that it brought things back into focus and helped her breathing to slow down. She began to breathe in unison with Daryl as she looked up at him with shining eyes, taking in his beautiful face and thanking a God she wasn’t even sure she believed in over and over in her head. 

“How?” she managed to get out, but he hushed her, and just said “Ain’t important now.” 

She wanted to snap at him that it WAS important, that she needed to know what had happened to him, where he had been, and even where they were going now (home, she hoped) but she was beginning to feel exhausted. Not only had Merle and her been walking since 6 a.m. that morning, at least 15 miles without a break and only a granola bar to fuel her, but then she had the most dramatic and heart-rendering shock of her life. She closed her eyes and took a few steady breaths, still feeling a few tears leaking out down her cheeks. 

“Aw, baby,” muttered Daryl, using his thumbs to wipe them away with his callused thumbs. “Baby. I’m so sorry. So sorry. My brave girl.”

Her eyes flipped open at that. “Sorry for what?” she gasped. 

“For scaring you so bad,” he muttered, his face getting a little pink. “For what happened at…the store. Getting trapped. Making you think I was dead for all those days. Not to mention, my brother…”

He let his voice trail off as he gently stroked Sara’s bruised cheekbone. His eyes flashed a little, but Sara stopped him, “He had to do it to get me out of there, Daryl. I wouldn’t leave you and he had to make me, any way he could.” 

Daryl bit his bottom lip and she saw a cloud of anger move across his face. “I’ll talk to you about that later,” he said. “For now, I just am going to get you something to eat.” 

“I just want to eat you,” she said, feeling some of her normal self return as she grinned up at her favorite person in the universe.

He smiled a little at that and then said, “What do you want? Poptarts? Cereal? Oatmeal?”

She looked at him confused. 

“We went back and cleared out that Super Walmart,” he said, a little proudly. “Got some awesome shit.” 

Her mouth hung open. 

“Chocolate or strawberry Poptarts?” He asked, beaming at her shocked reaction as he stood up and headed for the small door. 

“Both!” she shrieked, clapping her hands together, but then as he started to walk out the door, she stopped laughing. He looked down with a small frown as he felt her hop out of the bed and wrap her fingers around the back of his shirt. 

“I’ll come with you,” she said, trying to keep her voice neutral and hide the fact that the sight of him leaving her again, even if just for a moment to go in the other room, made her stomach clench in terror. 

He looked down at her and smiled gently, wrapping a big arm around her shoulders and pulling him tight to her. If her reaction bugged him, he didn’t show it. 

“Kay, girl,” was all he said, clutching him up against her and Sara leaned into his chest. 

There, in an RV barreling down a highway with bloody, walking corpses, she experienced joy and gratitude like she had never known, and all she could do was smile and sigh. Daryl, she thought. Daryl.


	29. Chapter 29

The group had been driving all through the night, Merle leading the way in his truck with Shane riding shotgun, and Rick driving the RV with Daryl and Sara. Daryl hadn’t been exaggerating when he had said that they cleaned out the Walmart. The RV was so packed that there was barely any room to move, not that anyone was complaining, and Sara could see that Merle’s pickup was nearly overflowing with boxes and boxes of stuff. 

After several hours of driving, Daryl had finally dozed off on the couch in the RV, his head propped up on a duffel bag filled with toiletries, and Sara had taken the chance to sit by Rick and have a serious talk. She wanted to know what had happened after Merle had dragged her out of the Super Walmart. 

In a low, lilting Southern drawl, Rick had explained that Shane and he had managed to get the shelf off Daryl just moments after Merle had knocked her out. Although bruised and limping, nothing was broken, and he had been able to get to his feet and run for it with the cops.

However, there had been no time for them to make it out the back door, so instead they ran deeper into the darkness of the pharmacy, finding an employee break room that only had 2 walkers in it. After killing them, they managed to hunker down in the room in silence for the rest of the night, listening to the dead growling around outside the door. 

Luckily, in Merle’s haste, he had left the delivery door wide open, and the light and sounds from the outdoors had lured several walkers outside, helping to thin the number of the dead inside the walls of the store. But, there were still at least 30 walkers to contend with before they could get outside, and they now had only one working flashlight between them. 

It had been Daryl’s idea that they use the guts of the walkers in the break room with them to try and hide their scent as they escaped the pharmacy. It was a daring, novel idea that no one had tried yet, but they knew it was their only chance and that they couldn’t stay inside the store much longer with dwindling supplies and oxygen in the tiny room. 

So, pushing down their nausea, they had draped themselves in walker guts and managed to boldly slip out of the store without any bloodshed. Once they were in the parking lot, they headed for the woods as rapidly and silently as possible. 

Daryl had wanted to immediately go find Sara, but Rick was adamant that they finish what they started, and the previous night storm’s would make it nearly impossible for him to track his brother accurately. When Rick suggested that one man hotwire a car from the parking lot and drive it into the opposite side of the building, while the other two worked to fill up their cars with the supplies from the inside, it was an idea that sounded insane, but after being trapped for so long without anything to eat or drink, it felt like a risk they had to take. 

“He wanted to track you, but he was limping pretty bad, and what with the rain making it impossible to track accurately…we told him the smartest way to find you guys was to wait with the cars,” explained Rick. 

Sara shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you guys,” she hissed. 

“What? Trust me, it took major convincing, and even a few blows, but in the end, he knew we were right and that Merle would go straight back to the cars when he felt it was safe.”

“That’s not what I meant, Rick!” cried Sara. “How could you go back in that store? Back into that nightmare, with Daryl a-almost…almost dying the first time!” 

Rick shrugged. “We needed this stuff. Wasn’t going home without it.” 

The tone in his voice was final and impervious. She sensed that the conversation was over, at least as far as that went. There was simply no stopping Rick Grimes when it came to providing for his family, and she knew firsthand that he would go to any lengths to look out for everyone else around him, even if it meant putting his own life on the line. 

She nodded tiredly in response, and then leaned back and closed her eyes. 

“Go get some shuteye in the bedroom,” Rick said, squeezing her leg. “We’re all okay now, that’s all that matters.”

Sara peeked her eyes open at him, and just sighed. 

“Daryl’s okay, honey. Really.” 

Sara looked back at the dozing man behind her and smiled. Yeah, he was okay. Rick was right. That’s all that mattered. 

***

Except, as the coming days wore on, it became increasingly clear to Sara that Daryl was NOT okay, at least not with her. After that first day when he held her down in the bed and kept her from losing herself to a panic attack, he hadn’t initiated any physical contact with her. In fact, she almost felt like he was avoiding her touching him at all costs, seemingly shrinking away from her hugs and caresses, never deepening her kisses and hardly calling her anything but just “Sara.” And, since they were sleeping in shifts so they could drive endlessly, he always seemed to find a way to time it so that he was behind the wheel when she was asleep, meaning that they never had any alone time in the bedroom together. 

The worst was when he told her to ride with Merle in the truck for a while, while he stayed with Rick and Shane in the RV. He claimed it was because he wanted to go through some of the ammunition boxes they had taken from Walmart, but Sara knew that was a lie. He just wanted her away from him, she could sense it. He would rather be in a confined space with Shane Walsh than be around her. The only thing was…she didn’t know why. 

Left to her own imagination as she stared out Merle’s truck window, she came up with a number of possibilities. Was it all this time together on the road, seeing her every day and every night, especially with no makeup on? Was it seeing how weak and ineffectual she was on her own, how she sucked everyone dry around her in order to stay survive? Was it just her personality in and of itself…being too needy, always grabbing on him, always crying and carrying on? Her mind cast back to all the times in recent days that she had snuggled against him or sat near him or smiled up at him, only to be met with cold politeness and tension. 

“Mind’s going a million miles an hour over there, sugar,” said Merle. “Want to tell me what’s going on in that pretty head?” 

She looked up at him and shook her head. 

“Aright,” he said, putting in a cassette tape of Rolling Stones and letting her sink back into her self-hating reverie. 

Moments like this made Sara flash back to her childhood, the way she was always upsetting her mother and letting her down in a myriad of mysterious ways. 

Sometimes she wouldn’t talk to Sara for days or weeks at a time, and Sara would rack her brain trying to think of what she had done wrong, what landmine she had accidentally exploded while navigating the war-zone which was her mother, but she rarely ever found out. Instead, one day out of nowhere, her mom would finally crack half a smile at one of Sara’s jokes, or compliment Sara on losing weight (stress always made Sara drop pounds), or even ask Sara to join her on the couch to watch “Murphy Brown.”

And, relieved, Sara would sink into the sofa with her and silently give thanks that her mom’s latest cold spell was over, except…a small, injured part of her would cling to that hurt, to the memory of her mother’s anger and iciness, and it chipped just another part of her spirit and self-worth away. 

Thinking back on all this now, it made perfect sense to Sara that Daryl would suddenly be acting this way. If her own mother got tired of her and found her so draining and annoying, why wouldn’t this handsome, powerful man who she just met? She knew she had nothing to offer anyone, especially not in this new world. She was like a declawed housecat trying to survive in the outdoors…and Daryl was sick of her being his problem. 

Blackness swirling in her brain, Sara sat in silence. He doesn’t want me anymore, she thought, before finally drifting off with her head against the windowpane.


	30. Chapter 30

Merle’s truck overheated near exit 22 off HWY I‑285. He was already half-riding on the shoulder to avoid the stalled, abandoned cars that littered the highway, and now the truck came to a full stop in the grassy ditch. 

“Don’t get out,” he commanded to Sara. “Let me get out and check it out.” 

She nodded slowly. She had no desire to wade through the thigh-high grass and wind up with chiggers or ticks…or a walker bite.   
Rick, Shane, and Daryl were still a ways behind them, the RV not as easily able to navigate the narrow road space, and Rick being careful to baby the aging vehicle as much as possible. 

She almost jumped out of her skin when she heard noise on the roof, but then she realized Merle was climbing on top of the truck, his rifle in hand. He stood there for a moment, leaving Sara to wonder what the hell was happening, and then he hopped down heavily. 

Merle tapped on her window, put his fingers on his lips and motioned for her to quietly exit the truck. Wide-eyed, she grabbed her backpack and quickly obeyed. 

She knew better than to ask questions when he roughly pushed her down so that she was half-crawling in the wet grass as he ushered towards the thicket of woods to the west of the highway. She nearly screamed when she felt the hand of a walker close around her wrist, but Merle had his hatchet in the dead thing’s hand, and then his head, before she could react. Stumbling onto her knees, she clung onto Merle’s big sweaty bicep for support, feeling the splash of blood from his blade drip on her arm. He didn’t slow his pace, instead easily hauling her back up and muttering, “Move, girl.” 

Finally, when they were about 20 yards from the truck, he motioned for her to get down near some bushes. Sinking beside her, he let out a deep breath, and said, 

“Horde.” 

“How many?” she asked. 

“Hundreds, girl,” he said, and her mouth fell open. “They on the move too, straight this way.” 

“What are we gonna do?” she asked, looking up at him in terror, and then twisting her head around frantically, expecting to see walkers pouring out of the trees at any moment. 

“Walk back the way we came, fast as we fuckin’ can,” he said. “Stick to the trees till we see the RV. Flag ‘em down.” 

She nodded, desperately eager for the safety of RV, for the warmth of Daryl’s arms. Her stomach rolled a little at that, as she remembered he was icing her out, but 

Merle didn’t give her long to worry about her romantic future, instead reaching into his back pocket and handing her a gun. 

“I cant—

“Gonna learn today,” he said, “Real simple.” 

Then, over the course of the next minute, Merle gave her quickest lesson on gun handling that anyone ever received, pointing out the basics and telling her “This is the safety” and “This is the trigger” and “Whatever you do, keep both eyes open when you shoot, and for fuck sake’s, don’t ever hesitate.” 

She looked up at him wide-eyed. 

“You hesitate, you’re dead,” he said. “You got it, sugar?” 

“Merle,” she murmured, holding the gun in both hands and looking up at him. “I’m scared.”

“Good, girl,” he said. “Then yer paying attention. Now c’mon. I know you can move fast and stay quiet, and that could save your life today.” 

Then, he gestured for her to follow him as they picked their way back down the highway, staying in the line of trees as much as possible, only veering back into the open grass when Merle deemed the woods to be too dense. 

They moved rapidly, even with Sara jumping out of her skin at every noise and whirling around every few minutes to look behind them. At one point, Merle motioned for her to hide behind a Honda Civic, while he adroitly climbed to the top of a semi truck for a better look at their surroundings. 

“Don’t see the RV still,” he said, as he eased back down and took his rifle from her arms. “But I see the horde still coming. They’s slow, but they moving.” 

He pointed back to the tree line, and she tiredly followed him, her feet slowly starting to ache. Another thirty minutes passed, in which time Merle killed a handful of walkers without even breaking his stride, while Sara watched in terrified awe. 

“How did you get so good at that?” she marveled. “It’s like you’re not even scared.” 

“I ain’t, not really,” he shrugged, and Sara could tell that was the truth and not just machismo. 

“How is that possible? I’m scared all the time.”

“Yeah,” he said, wiping his hatchet and sheathing it. “But bet ya was scared all the time in the old world too.” 

She blinked at that, and followed behind him, staring at the back of his for a minute before admitting, “Yeah, I was. What’s your point?” 

“You was scared then and you’s scared now,” he said. “And I was angry then and I’s angry now. See, not all that much has changed, huh?” 

“My therapist used to say that anger is actually fear in disguise,” said Sara, swatting away a mosquito. 

“Yeah, well, Shakespeare said, ‘blunt not the heart, enrage it,’” said Merle, and then he playfully turned around gave her the finger. 

She laughed, and shook her head. “How come you won’t tell me what you used to do before all this?” she demanded. “You had to have been like an English teacher or something.” 

It was his turn to laugh. “Yer fucking nuts. You think any parents would let me teach their kids?”

“Well, what then?” she asked. “You can’t just keep saying ‘nothing.’ Everybody did something.” 

Merle’s attitude changed instantly. He stopped smiling and shrugged, “And fuck were you doing? Sucking cock for roles in B movies?” 

Her cheeks reddened. “Why do you always do that?” 

“Do what, sugar?” he asked flatly, quickening his pace so that she had to almost jog to keep up. 

“Get so mean all the sudden,” she said. “Turn on a dime like that. It’s like you…become someone else.” 

He rubbed a hand over his shaved head and cast a glance back at her. “Shit, you know you shouldn’t pay me any mind. Oughta be used to the Dixon temper after shacking up with Darleena.”

“Daryl doesn’t ever lose his temper with me,” she said loyally, even as her eyes burned a little at the memory of his coldness the last few days. 

Merle scoffed. “Not yet,” he said. “Trust me, girl. We both got the devil in us. Ain’t no way ‘round that.” 

Sara shook her head sadly. 

“There’s the RV!” he said. 

“Thank Christ,” she said, and then they both broke into a run, Merle waving his arms frantically to catch Rick’s attention as the vehicle eased down the highway. 

The RV slowly sputtered to a halting stop, and Merle shoved Sara up the stairs to the open door as quickly as possible. 

Daryl was on her the second she climbed up the first step, hauling her up by her armpits and demanding, “Fuck happened? You okay? Fuck happened!?”

“Fine,” she said, with a jagged exhale as she tried to catch her breath. 

“Horde,” said Merle, climbing into the RV and slamming the door shut behind him. “Hundreds of ‘em up ahead and gaining on us every second. Truck broke down. Been walking till we could find ya.” 

“Shit!” swore Shane. “Shit! I knew we shouldn’t have come this way!” 

“Fuck!” Rick said, slamming his hands on the steering wheel. “You telling me you left all the supplies out there?” 

“Had no choice, man! They woulda been on us like white on rice if we didn’t get the fuck outta there!” snapped Merle.

“Sit down,” Daryl ordered Sara, who was now weakly clutching on to the bottle of water he handed her. 

“Gonna be hard to turn this fuckin’ boat around,” said Shane. “You better reverse for a while till we got more room.” 

Sara walked to the middle of the RV and sat down shakily on a pile of boxes, while the RV suddenly lurched backwards, Rick reversing as fast as possible while trying not to hit anything. 

“Brotha,” greeted Merle as he walked past Daryl, and slapped him on the back. “Kept your girl alive again. Shit, I’m gonna have to start charging ya.” 

Daryl looked back at her and his face shadowed. 

“Taught her how to use a gun though,” he said. “Maybe you should have thought of that ‘fore dragging her movie-star ass out here?” 

Shane laughed at that, and Merle cracked open a warm Budweiser. Sara rolled her eyes. She was sick of these fucking men, she thought suddenly. Including Daryl. 

Slamming her water bottle down, she stormed into the back bedroom and shut the door behind her, collapsing onto the bed. Fuck them! Like it was HER fault she didn’t know how to survive in a fucking apocalypse? She thought angrily. Sorry, I didn’t live out in the woods trapping and killing and eating roadkill for fun before the world ended. She was so angry she wanted to scream. 

Instead, she decided to change out of her dirty, blood-stained clothes. She undid her Converse, and then stood up awkwardly in the moving RV to step out of them and her jeans. Just as she pulled her bloody T-shirt off her head, she heard the door open. Looking up, and covering herself with a gasp, she saw it was Daryl. 

He blushed a little at the sight of her in just a bra and panties. 

“Can I come in?” he asked awkwardly, staring at the ground instead of at her. 

“No!” she bit out, sitting down on the bed and keeping her hands up on her chest, which she realized was utterly stupid as he had already seen every naked inch of her. But still. That was before. “Please. I want to be alone!”

Her outburst and the way she was covering herself shocked Daryl, and she saw hurt and anger quickly follow confusion on his face.   
“What’s the matter? What happened?” he asked. “What did Merle do?” 

Sara’s mouth popped open at that. And then she closed it.

“Nothing, Daryl…he didn’t do anything. He kept me alive, just like he said. Just like you did. Like Rick did. Like Andrea did. Like everyone has.” 

His forehead creased even deeper, and he peeked up at her from under the strands of hair falling across his face. 

“Please go, Daryl,” she said, her lower lip starting to tremble. “I’m trying to change.” 

“Baby,” he whispered softly, and she cringed at that like he had hit her. 

“Please,” she said, her voice breaking. “Don’t call me that now.” 

He turned and put his face against the doorframe, his cheek against his bicep as he grabbed the wall for support in the rocking RV. In that moment, he looked wrecked, as if he didn’t know what to do himself. 

Seeing him like that touched her more than she wanted to admit. As much as he hurt her, she never wanted to hurt him, ever, and she knew that this was just as awkward for him as it was for her. 

She curled her legs up into her chest on the bed, resting her chin on her knees and resisting the nearly bone-breakingly-painful urge she had to go over and hug him. 

“I don’t want to be rude, I’m sorry,” she said. “It just hurts too bad, to hear you call me that, when…when I know you’re done with me. So please, please don’t.” 

He ripped his head out of his hands so fast that she thought he was gonna get whiplash. “Done with you!?” he choked out. “The fuck? The…FUCK?!” 

Sara winced, and put a finger to her lips. “Shh,” she said, her face coloring as she knew that Shane and Merle would be able to hear everything. 

Daryl ignored her. “What the FUCKING SHITTIN’ CHRIST ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, GIRL!” he yelled, slamming his hand against the door frame and making her jump. 

“Daryl!” she cried. “Stop!” 

“Girl,” he said, in a broken voice. Then, he crossed the small space quickly, sitting on the bed and pulling her straight into his lap, using one arm to hold her legs down firmly, and locking her wrists together in her lap with the other hand.

“Let go,” she said, twisting against him, feeling too vulnerable and raw for him to be holding her like this. “You’re hurting me.” 

He instantly released her and she got out of his lap, standing beside the bed, and rubbing her wrists reflexively. Just then the RV started to turn, and she lost her balance, her shin hitting the bed frame painfully. 

“Shit,” she swore, and she saw Daryl reach for her, and then stop himself mid-gesture. Instead, he reached to the nightstand and threw her a tanktop, a white cami that still had the tags on from the Super Walmart. 

She put it on gratefully, and then reached for a pair of gray-and-pink yoga leggings that were in a pile by the widow. Shimmying them on without looking at him, she sat back carefully on the bed, as the RV was still twisting. Again, she saw Daryl’s hand reach out for her, and then stop. 

“Why, girl?” he said, and his voice was so full of need that it nearly blindsided her. “Why can’t I touch ya? Why can’t I call you ‘baby’?” 

She shuddered with unshed tears and curled onto the bed, her back to him as he sat upright on the mattress. “What do you mean? Isn’t it obvious? You won’t talk to me or look at me, not really…and then you sent me off with Merle…” 

She took a deep breath, talking as fast as she could to try and block out the way he smelled, the way warmth just radiated from him, the way her pussy felt wet just from being this close to him in bed. 

“I know why you’re doing it, I know it’s not your fault, not at all. You put up with a lot, a LOT from me, and you have done more for me than any other man has ever done…but I get it, and I don’t blame you, I don’t blame you, I’m a lot to handle, and if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt back there, you wouldn’t have nearly died, you would---

And, then from behind, he wrapped his hand around her mouth, stopping her mid-sentence, and then he nearly groaned in pain. 

“Stop, stop, Duchess, just stop,” he commanded, not yelling anymore, but his intensity clear even in his low tone. “Don’t talk no more. Don’t talk no more.” 

She nodded confusedly and he took his hand off her mouth, instead wrapping it around her hair, tugging and pulling tightly into his fists. 

“You listenin’?” he asked, easing onto his forearm and looking down at her. 

Again, a nod. 

But he didn’t start talking. Instead he breathed heavily and then rested his forehead against the side of her jaw. 

“Oh, baby,” he said, and then stopped, quickly adding, “Sorry, that just came out.” 

She sighed. “Don’t say sorry, Daryl. It just…hurts now.” 

“But, girl—

And then they heard jumbled shouting coming from the front of the RV, the sound of gunshots, and suddenly Sara and Daryl were both flung to the floor as the RV crashed headlong into something, then rolled on its side, the sound of breaking glass and twisting metal and screams filling the small space. 

Sara wanted to cry out for Daryl, but blood filled her mouth and then everything went black.


	31. Chapter 31

Daryl figured it was about one a.m., but since the sky was so cloudy, it was hard to accurately judge the time by the stars. His head was throbbing, and his neck was so stiff he could barely turn it more than a half an inch to the right or left. 

All things considered though, he knew he walked away from the RV crash a lucky man, not only because he was in one piece, but because Sara was as well. After the RV flipped on his side, he found her laying on the floor, half underneath him, unconscious and blood pouring down her face. At first, he panicked, but as he wiped the blood away, he realized it was coming from his own head, which he had hit hard against the side of the windowpane as he went down. 

He didn’t know what had happened to cause the crash, but the sounds of screaming and gunshots before the accident told him that they were in trouble. Grabbing his bow and Sara’s backpack, he had carefully eased open the back window of the RV, which was now on its side. He dragged Sara’s body through the window carefully, being sure to angle her body on top of his so that the broken glass on the pavement didn’t get into her flesh. Sheltered by the RV, which was now half on the shoulder and half on the grassy ditch, he sat on his haunches for a moment, listening. He heard male voices he didn’t recognize coming from the front, near the site of the crash, and his mouth went dry. He had to get Sara out of there, and fast. He would rather face a horde of walkers than living men, because he knew what harm they were capable of, especially when it came to women. 

He hoisted her unconscious body into his arms, and he cringed a bit when she started murmuring. The last thing they needed now was to make any noise. 

Then, he heard Rick’s voice, but instead of feeling relived, his blood went cold. Rick was using that “Please don’t kill us” tone of voice he had a handful of times before, that calm, cool, Officer Friendly voice that told Daryl they didn’t have the upper hand in this situation. 

“Listen, guys, we ain’t gonna give you no trouble,” said Rick. “It’s just me and my buddy Shane here, okay? And that’s Merle there on the ground, he’s out cold, you can see you don’t need to do this.” 

Daryl’s face contorted in anger. Fuck, Merle was hurt. The fuck. But, Rick was talking loudly, a little more loudly than necessary, and Daryl realized Rick was trying to send him a message…to tell Daryl the men didn’t know they were back there, to make a run for it while they still could. 

The idea appalled him. He didn’t want to abandon his brother, or Rick, or hell, even Shane. 

“You got us way outnumbered here, man,” he heard Rick say again, still in that booming voice. “We ain’t stupid enough to try something. Just take what you want and go.” 

That was Daryl’s cue. He had to get Sara out of there. He didn’t know what they were dealing with yet, but he wasn’t gonna try and pull some superhero shit and put Sara at risk. 

Staying low to the ground, he belly-crawled along the ground as best he could, no easy feat with Sara’s limp body dragging beside him and his heavy bow in the other. 

After a painful five minutes giving himself road burn up and down his palms and forearms, Daryl had pulled them away from the wreckage and behind a clump of trees near the highway. From this vantage point, he could see shadows moving around the front of the RV, but he still couldn’t see how many men they were dealing with, or what was happening to his brother. 

Not knowing what else to do, Daryl did what he always did when he was scared or lost or overwhelmed…he went deep into the woods, except this time, unlike all those other times when he was a kid, and a young adult, and then a man, he wasn’t alone. 

****

It wasn’t long after he started walking that Sara shifted and moaned several times in his arms. He kept his grip tight on her until he felt like they were a decent enough distance from the highway, then he found a secluded clearing surrounded by thick undergrowth and eased her down onto the mossy ground. 

She let out a groan and blinked her eyes several times, then looked around in confusion. 

He waited for to freak out, but she didn’t, just took in the surroundings and then reached out to touch his bloodied forehead gently.

“Daryl,” she said sadly. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m alright,” he said, “Jus’ worried about you.” 

“Where are the others?” she asked. 

He shook his head wordlessly. 

“Are they dead?” she asked, and the flat stoicism in her tone was haunting. 

“Dunno, Merle was hurt bad,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Some guys with guns had ‘em. Just had to run for it.” 

“Oh,” she said, laying her hand on her heart. 

Then, unexpectedly, she was wrapping herself around him where he sat, giving him a sideways hug as she clutched on to him and rubbed her cheek on his shoulder.   
Daryl felt his insides clench a little at that, at feeling her so close to him, feeling her holding him and touching him, opening up for him just like she always did. Even after everything he had done wrong. 

“We need to keep moving,” he said. “Want to find somewhere to stay for the night, somewhere safe for you.” 

She sighed and tightened her arms around him for a second, then released. 

“Are you sure we shouldn’t go back? I could…hang back. I’ll do what you say, whatever you say, I promise,” said Sara, speaking quickly as if worried he was going to interrupt her before she could finish her thought. “Don’t let me be the reason you don’t go to him. He’s your brother.” 

Daryl rose to his feet, shaking his head. “Nah, girl. Merle can handle hisself, always has.” 

Sara’s eyes flooded with unshed tears, but she just nodded submissively. That irked him more than he would have expected. He was used to her being a bit livelier with him, at least lately, and to see her quietly agreeing with him, even when he could tell she didn’t share his opinion, made him sick. Especially ‘cause it reminded him of those early days when he would always mock her and insult her, and she would just take it without a word. 

But he didn’t have time to worry about that now. 

“C’mon, then,” he said, and he set off into darkening twilight, Sara strapping on her backpack and following behind him silently.


	32. Chapter 32

Daryl figured it was about one a.m., but since the sky was so cloudy, it was hard to accurately judge the time by the stars. His head was throbbing, and his neck was so stiff he could barely turn it more than a half an inch to the right or left. 

All things considered though, he knew he walked away from the RV crash a lucky man, not only because he was in one piece, but because Sara was as well. After the RV flipped on his side, he found her laying on the floor, half underneath him, unconscious and blood pouring down her face. At first, he panicked, but as he wiped the blood away, he realized it was coming from his own head, which he had hit hard against the side of the windowpane as he went down. 

He didn’t know what had happened to cause the crash, but the sounds of screaming and gunshots before the accident told him that they were in trouble. Grabbing his bow and Sara’s backpack, he had carefully eased open the back window of the RV, which was now on its side. He dragged Sara’s body through the window carefully, being sure to angle her body on top of his so that the broken glass on the pavement didn’t get into her flesh. Sheltered by the RV, which was now half on the shoulder and half on the grassy ditch, he sat on his haunches for a moment, listening. He heard male voices he didn’t recognize coming from the front, near the site of the crash, and his mouth went dry. He had to get Sara out of there, and fast. He would rather face a horde of walkers than living men, because he knew what harm they were capable of, especially when it came to women. 

He hoisted her unconscious body into his arms, and he cringed a bit when she started murmuring. The last thing they needed know was to make any noise.  
Then, he heard Rick’s voice, but instead of feeling relived, his blood went cold. Rick was using that “Please don’t kill us” tone of voice he had a handful of times before, that calm, cool, Officer Friendly voice that told Daryl they didn’t have the upper hand in this situation. 

“Listen, guys, we ain’t gonna give you no trouble,” said Rick. “It’s just me and my buddy Shane here, okay? And that’s Merle there on the ground, he’s out cold, you can see you don’t need to do this.” 

Daryl’s face contorted in anger. Fuck, Merle was hurt. The fuck. But, Rick was talking loudly, a little more loudly than necessary, and Daryl realized Rick was trying to send him a message…to tell Daryl the men didn’t know they were back there, to make a run for it while they still could. 

The idea appalled him. He didn’t want to abandon his brother, or Rick, or hell, even Shane. 

“You got us way outnumbered here, man,” he heard Rick say again, still in that booming voice. “We ain’t stupid enough to try something. Just take what you want and go.” 

That was Daryl’s cue. He had to get Sara out of there. He didn’t know what they were dealing with yet, but he wasn’t gonna try and pull some superhero shit and put Sara at risk. 

Staying low to the ground, he belly-crawled along the ground as best he could, no easy feat with Sara’s limp body dragging beside him and his heavy bow in the other. 

After a painful five minutes giving himself road burn up and down his palms and forearms, Daryl had pulled them away from the wreckage and behind a clump of trees near the highway. From this vantage point, he could see shadows moving around the front of the RV, but he still couldn’t see how many men they were dealing with, or what was happening to his brother. 

Not knowing what else to do, Daryl did what he always did when he was scared or lost or overwhelmed…he went deep into the woods, except this time, unlike all those other times when he was a kid, and a young adult, and then a man, he wasn’t alone. 

****

It wasn’t long after he started walking that Sara shifted and moaned several times in his arms. He kept his grip tight on her until he felt like they were a decent enough distance from the highway, then he found a secluded clearing surrounded by thick undergrowth and eased her down onto the mossy ground. 

She let out a groan and blinked her eyes several times, then looked around in confusion. 

He waited for to freak out, but she didn’t, just took in the surroundings and then reached out to touch his bloodied forehead gently.

“Daryl,” she said sadly. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m alright,” he said, “Jus’ worried about you.” 

“Where are the others?” she asked. 

He shook his head wordlessly. 

“Are they dead?” she asked, and the flat stoicism in her tone was haunting. 

“Dunno, Merle was hurt bad,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Some guys with guns had ‘em. Just had to run for it.” 

“Oh,” she said, laying her hand on her heart. 

Then, unexpectedly, she was wrapping herself around him where he sat, giving him a sideways hug as she clutched on to him and rubbed her cheek on his shoulder.

Daryl felt his insides clench a little at that, at feeling her so close to him, feeling her holding him and touching him, opening up for him just like she always did. Even after everything he had done wrong.

“We need to keep moving,” he said. “Want to find somewhere to stay for the night, somewhere safe for you.” 

She sighed and tightened her arms around him for a second, then released. 

“Are you sure we shouldn’t go back? I could…hang back. I’ll do what you say, whatever you say, I promise,” said Sara, speaking quickly as if worried he was going to interrupt her before she could finish her thought. “Don’t let me be the reason you don’t go to him. He’s your brother.” 

Daryl rose to his feet, shaking his head. “Nah, girl. Merle can handle hisself, always has.” 

Sara’s eyes flooded with unshed tears, but she just nodded submissively. That irked him more than he would have expected. He was used to her being a bit livelier with him, at least lately, and to see her quietly agreeing with him, even when he could tell she didn’t share his opinion, made him sick. Especially ‘cause it reminded him of those early days when he would always mock her and insult her, and she would just take it without a word. 

But he didn’t have time to worry about that now. 

“C’mon, then,” he said, and he set off into darkening twilight, Sara strapping on her backpack and following behind him silently.


	33. Chapter 33

By the time Daryl had found a place for them to stop for the night, it was almost pitch-black. It was a small hunting cabin, no more than 350 square feet, with nothing but a full-size bed, a kerosene stove and a round kitchen table with two chairs. There was nothing of value in the cabin, save a torn and tattered blanket and two pillows on the bed, but Daryl was pleased with his find. 

At least now Sara could sleep indoors tonight, could be safe (or safer) from the dangers outside. But his happiness at the cabin didn’t last long. As she limped exhaustedly inside, he realized that he had been keeping a breakneck pace due to his adrenaline and fear for Merle, and that she must have had a helluva time trying to keep up with his stupid, insensitive ass. 

“Sit down,” he gruffly ordered her. She gingerly placed herself on the bed, and he realized there was something wrong with her left ankle.

“Show me.” 

Her eyes widened and she shook her head a little nervously, almost like a child afraid to hand over a note from the teacher or something. 

He sighed in exasperation, not at her, at himself, but he could tell by her ashamed face she didn’t realize that. 

“Girl, just show me,” he said, squatting in front of her and starting to untie her shoes. 

She kicked him away and said, “I’ll do it,” and then, she peeled off her own socks and shoes. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” said Daryl, putting his head in hands as he looked down. Her left ankle was the size of a baseball. He couldn’t believe she had been waking on it this whole time, let alone at such a pace. Without speaking, he took off his flannel, then removed his t-shirt, noticing her flush as he suddenly stood in front of her shirtless. She bit her lip and looked down. 

Using his knife to get a tear going, he started to rip the shirt into long strips. 

He noticed she was shaking as he grabbed her ankle in his hands and then sat down on the bed beside her.

“Cold?” he asked. 

She shrugged. “Sorta.” 

“Let me wrap your ankle good and tight, then I am gonna start a fire in that stove. Should help to warm things up a bit.” 

“I’m okay,” she said, but he just ignored her and held her small ankle in his hands, running the strip around it as tight as he could without hurting her too bad. Still, she winced at his handling, and he felt a surge of guilt.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, looking up at her from under the long strands of hair falling in his face. 

She just shrugged again.

Her silence cut him. He felt like he had broken something between them, something rare and wonderful and something so…good. He didn’t mean to, but he had. He wanted to make her understand somehow, to apologize, but he didn’t know how. His dad used to say that apologizing to a woman was like feeding filet mignon to a dog. They didn’t appreciate it and it would just spoil them. 

‘Course, Daryl didn’t think like that, not at all, but that didn’t negate the fact that he had no idea how to interact with a woman, not in any real, lasting way. And, at his core, he had to admit, he was scared of Sara. Scared of how delicate and sensitive and sweet she was. Scared of how much he cared about her. Scared that he almost lost her because he was a fucking idiot. Scared that he was failing at the only thing he knew how to do, scared that he was failing at the main thing she liked him for, the fact that he could survive and help her survive in turn. 

As he pondered these things darkly, he got the kerosene stove going and handed her the remaining bottle of water she had in her backpack. She had several mini boxes of cereal in there, too, and he held up Corn Pops and Froot Loops for her to choose. 

She pointed to the box with the toucan. 

They ate in silence, Sara picking hers out of the box one by one, Daryl pouring his into his hand and taking a few big giant bites. After a few minutes, she handed out her box to him, sighing casually. 

“Don’t want anymore,” she said. “You want?”

He shook his head and gave her a look. She raised her eyebrows a little defensively, then sighed and went back to eating, this time a little faster, as if her slow pace before had been for his benefit, which he suspected it was. That made him hurt a little bit somewhere deep inside his chest. 

“You lay down,” he said, when she finished and put the empty box on the nightstand. “I’m gonna keep watch out front. I’ll pop in to check you from time to time.” 

Sara nodded dolefully and carefully laid down on the bed. 

“Don’t come outside no matter what, okay?” he said. “If you need me, call for me. Don’t go walking out there looking for me.” 

She made a funny, strangled noise at that, and he looked over and saw that she was on her side on the bed, her back to him so that he couldn’t see her face. 

“Your ankle must be killing ya,” he said, a little ruefully. 

She didn’t reply, and he assumed she was already half-asleep.

He went outside and shut the door. Sitting on the porch, his callused, cold hands in his lap, he inhaled deeply and smelled the familiar scent of the woods, the smell of pine and damp earth and fallen leaves. 

Gazing at the cloudy stars, he sat there for nearly an hour, not moving except to walk around the small cabin a handful of times. Everything was still and silent.

Then, he heard muffled crying coming from inside the cabin, and his face paled. Hopping off the porch, he walked in so fast he nearly tripped headfirst into the door.

He groped his way into the darkness, following the sounds of Sara’s soft crying. 

Without pausing to think, he climbed into bed next to her, not bothering to take off his muddy boots as he pulled her backwards against him, her ass flush against his upper thighs, her hair strewn across his chest. 

“What is it, girl?” 

She let out a small confused noise at that. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Everything. You. Merle. Everything.” 

He sighed into her hair and found her hands in the darkness, gripping his own around them carefully. 

“You’re gonna be okay, baby,” he said. “I’m always gonna take care of you.” 

“I’m not worried about me,” she said, crying harder. 

He rubbed her wrists, and let his fingers trail along the inside of her forearm. 

“I’m worried about you,” he admitted finally. “Worried about you all the time.”

Her sobbing lessened a little. “Why?” she asked. “I never even do anything.” 

“Shit, girl,” he said. “You took on a dead thing about 8 times your size inside that Super Walmart. Never seen a walker that big, and you killed it like you wasn’t even scared of it.” 

She removed one of her hands from his so that she could wipe her face. 

“I wasn’t,” she said. “All I was scared of then was you dying.” 

He rubbed his crotch against her a little bit, wrapping his arm around her waist and gripping her tight. 

Then, he said, his voice breaking a little. “I’ve been a fucking jackass, I know. But I was just so angry with you.” 

He began rubbing her leg, rough fingers running up and down the inside of her thighs in soft, intense circles and she licked her lips unintentionally and moaned. He stopped his movements at that and she looked up at him with blinking, wide eyes. 

“Why…why were you angry with me?” she demanded suddenly, which helped him to keep his mind on matters at hand, instead of being distracted by the lightening bolts of arousal growing inside of him. 

“You didn’t listen to me!” he said. “You broke your fucking word to me!”

She shook her head in confusion. “I did not!” 

“I told you to do whatever I said while we were in that damn store!” he bit out, his eyes flashing, his hand tightening around her thigh in a vice grip. “And you fucking didn’t, girl! You fucking didn’t! You almost got yourself killed, because you broke your word to me! Do you know how that fucking made me feel, seeing those walkers come after you and me not able to do a fucking thing?” 

“What was I supposed to do!” she asked in utter shock. “Let you lay there and die?” 

“You were SUPPOSED to fuckin’ listen the FUCK to me, like you FUCKIN’ swore you would! You fuckin’ swore that to me,” and his voice was heated now, as he suddenly remembered the sight of that giant walker just inches from her, of her purposely putting her own body in front of that dead thing in order to protect him. 

She angrily twisted in his lap, trying to break free of his grasp, but he was stronger than her and easily kept her in his hold. 

“How fucking dare you!” she snapped. “You expected me to just walk out of there and leave you there to die? To not even try and help you, as useless as I know I am? Even if it meant being eaten by walkers, it would have been worth it! I would rather a million times over to die beside you than to ever, ever, ever, ever feel the way I felt those days in the woods with Merle.” 

And now she was crying again, her body shaking as she recalled those days of horror and hopelessness, those wretched, black days in the trailer with nothing but his dead body in her mind. 

He moaned lowly at seeing her cry, and then he reached over and pulled her down on top of him, putting her head on his chest and laying her legs in between his. His large arms ran up and down her back, stroking her hair, as he hushed her and kissed the top of her hand. 

“Aw, girl,” he said, feeling like the biggest piece of shit for putting her through all that. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I just…You can have any man you want…and I’m just a stupid redneck without anything to offer ya. That’s why it made me so angry you wouldn’t listen to me…if I can’t protect ya, what use am I? That’s all I got to offer ya, so if you don’t take it…shit, than I’M the one who’s useless. And feeling useless to you? Found out that's the worst feeling in this whole damn world.” 

Sara lifted her head at that, and straddled him, looking down at him in the near-total darkness of the cabin. 

“You think I am with you because you’re good with a crossbow?” she challenged him. 

He scoffed a little at that and shrugged, but then said, “Not in so many words…but yeah.” 

She shook her head sadly. “Daryl, the fact that you’re good at protecting people, that you’re good at surviving in this world…as cool and sexy as that is, I gotta tell you, it’s like the LEAST interesting thing about you.” 

He raised his eyebrows.

“You want to know what I like about you?” she asked. 

He could only nod slowly, as he was starting to get hard from the feeling of her straddling him like that, looking down on him like she was riding his cock. 

“Hmm,” she said, thoughtfully, leaning down to lightly kiss his lips and then move down to his neck. “The things I like about Daryl Dixon…I like how you’re so tender underneath all that toughness” (her lips moved down to his chest as she began to unbutton his flannel) “I like how you’re always so warm…and hard (and now his flannel was open as she kissed his chest and moved down his abs) “I like how your big cock feels inside my pussy” (and now she was undoing his jeans) “I like how your cum tastes in my mouth” (and now she was pulling his jeans down, freeing his hard cock and then smiling up at him like she just won the lottery). 

“So, yeah, fuck your crossbow,” she said, and then suddenly he was inside her warm, wet mouth, his cock being milked adoringly by her as she sucked him heatedly.

He moaned and let his forearms fall on his forehead, bucking his hips just a little bit to get deeper into her mouth. As if getting his point, she opened wider and took him all the way in, and he felt his cock bump the back of her throat. 

“Shitttttt,” he said. “That’s it, girl. Shit.”

He reached down to stroke her hair, letting his hands tighten a little on the strands. She took his cock deep again, and he felt her swallow on his cock. 

He almost lost it then and there, and then she pulled back a little choking. She smiled up at him, and wiped her mouth a little, a mixture of saliva and precum on her full lips. 

Then, she was at it again, this time gripping and tugging his balls before pulling one into her mouth and sucking it, and next her tongue was broadly licking from the back of his ballsack back up to his pulsating dick. 

“You better get on this dick, girl,” he breathed as she sucked him, using one of her hands to pump and twist his base at the same time. “Ain’t gonna last much longer.” 

She smiled. “You sure?” she said. “You said we gotta wait for condoms.” 

“Need ya, girl,” he said, and he really meant it. He felt like he truly needed her pussy, like if he couldn’t be inside of her, something would break inside of him. Like she was the antidote and he needed her in his sick system right away. 

In the dark, he saw her pull of her cami and then shimmy out of her yoga pants and panties. All she had on now was a black bra. He reached up and pulled the cups down, letting her breasts free. 

He moaned a little and pulled her forward with his hands on her hips so that he could get one of her nipples in his mouth. “Missed these tits real bad,” he said, using his hands to tightly grip her breasts while he worked on licking and sucking her left nipple, a dazed, happy expression on his face. 

She didn’t answer, just lifted her hips up and gently sat back a little, before carefully angling her warm pussy around his cock.

He bit her nipple out of reflex as he felt the overwhelming pleasure wash over him. 

“Fuckkkk,” he said, laying back on the pillow and releasing a shaking breath.

Putting her hands on his shoulders, she began to ride him, not rough and urgent, but slow and deep, as if she was trying to pull him as far into her pussy as she could. 

“Daryl,” she murmured, and then she reached a hand between her legs and started stroking her clit while she rocked back-and-forth on him. It was the sexiest thing he had ever seen, the way her little hand looked as she worked her pussy, the way her mouth was making sinfully happy little “O” sounds, the way her tits bounced as she went up and down on his cock. 

The more she stroked her clit, the tighter her pussy wrapped around him, and he was scared he was going to cum inside of her again.

Quickly, he sat up and flipped her over on her stomach. He eased her onto her knees and she got the picture quickly, leaning her ass back into him as he plunged his cock back inside of her waiting cunt. Then, he picked up the pace, enjoying the control and depth he got in this position, one hand wrapped around her hair, while the other reached around and began stroking her clit. 

“Daryl!” she cried suddenly, and then one of her hands went to grip his as she came on his dick, and he rapidly pulled out, his cum spurting out on to her lower back just in time. 

They stayed motionless for a second, and then Sara collapsed back on the bed, releasing a happy moan. Daryl followed suit, using the blanket to gently wipe his cum off her back. 

“Love fucking my girl,” he said, and she let out a flattered little noise at that. 

He repeated, “My girl. My girl. Cant—can’t believe you thought I wanted to be done with ya.” 

She rubbed her fingers on the hand that he had spread around her belly as he spooned her. 

“You’re everything to me now, baby,” he said, his voice earnest as he had ever heard it.

“Mmm,” she said, nuzzling her naked ass against him as he pulled the blanket around them. “It wasn’t your fault, not really…I just get caught in my own head sometimes. I think the way I grew up kinda fucked me up.” 

He guffawed a little at that. “Yeah, same here.” 

“Well, aren’t we just a match made in heaven,” she said, teasingly. 

But in complete earnest, he answered, “Yeah, I think we are.”


	34. Chapter 34

When Sara woke up, it was to a gray misty morning and an empty bed. She sat up and pulled the ratty blanket around her shoulders, and then shuffled on bare feet to the front door, her swollen left ankle aching as she did so. Opening it a crack, she saw Daryl sitting on the patio, his back against one of the weathered wood posts, his bow strung across his lap. 

Sara smiled. She eased the door open and padded out to him, trying not to let him see her limp. He glanced over his shoulder and gave her a small, pleased grin, tucking his chin down a little shyly as he did so. 

Birds were singing in the clear morning air as she sat down beside him on the patio, snuggling against him and laying her cheek on his bicep. It was cool outside, but Daryl still felt warm, and the air smelled fresh and clean. 

“Did you get any rest?” She asked him, curling her fingers around his flannel. 

He shrugged and let out a small grunt. 

“Go lay down and let me keep watch for a while,” she coaxed. “You can sleep for a few hours. I will come get you right away if anything goes wrong. I promise.” 

He shook his head. 

“I promise, Daryl!” she said, a little frustrated. “Okay? I won’t ever break my word to you again.”

He looked down at her worried face and clucked his tongue affectionately. 

“Girl,” he said, leaning over to kiss her on the top of her head and stroke her hair. “I trust you, okay? It ain’t that I don’t trust ya.”

“Then what?” she asked. 

He paused and then said, “Want to head back to the wreck. Look for my brother.” 

Sara’s insides shrank a little at the hint of anxiety in Daryl’s voice. She didn’t know how he would react if Merle was…but no, she wouldn’t even let herself think that. She didn’t know what to say, so she just gently kissed his bicep though his flannel. “Okay,” she said. 

“How’s your ankle?” he asked, looking down at her anxiously. 

She shrugged, and then decided to just be honest. 

“It hurts like a bitch,” she said. 

He hummed worriedly and reached out for her bandaged ankle, running his cool fingers up and down the swollen joint. 

“Best bet is to get back to the highway and find us a car,” he said, “You ain’t gonna get nowhere far on that thing. I can carry ya, but I won’t be able to shoot anything with ya in my arms.” 

“I can walk,” she said. “I want to walk.” 

He looked distractedly out into the woods, chewing on his lower lip as he thought about something. 

“Could stay here another day or two…let the swelling go down,” he said. 

She could see he was already starting to formulate a plan in his head, so she interrupted him quickly. “No!” she said. “I want to go back and find Merle, too.” 

Daryl looked doubtfully down at her. 

“I know he’s your brother, but he’s my friend, too, you know,” she said, a little sassily. “Fact, other than you, he’s probably like my top favorite person, even if he did accuse me of sucking dick for movie roles just yesterday.” 

Daryl flinched at that, his head almost whacking the back of the post as he recoiled at her statement. Then, he just chuckled and shook his head. 

“Fuck, that sounds like Merle,” he said. “You shoulda punched him.” 

Sara giggled a little. “Shoot, I already punched him enough to last a lifetime I think.” 

Daryl lifted his eyebrows in confusion. 

“After he dragged me out of the Super Walmart,” she clarified. “Once I came to and realized what he had done. I just lost it on him, think I hit him about 50 times.” 

Daryl smiled sadly and dragged Sara a little closer into his side, running his hand through her hair and making a fist in the strands. 

“Shit,” he said. “Why the fuck did I bring you out here?” 

“Hey! I want to be out here. With you. But also not just with you.” 

“Huh?” he asked, and she realized her words came out wrong.

Laughing, she quickly explained, “Not like that…I mean, I want to be out here because you’re out here…but that’s not the only reason.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m never going to learn how to survive by staying cooped up there in Beth’s bedroom. Letting Herschel and the others boss me around and keep me safe,” she said. “I’m not a kid…or a teenager even. I’m an adult woman. This is the world now. I have to learn how to fight, how to protect myself…y’know?” 

Daryl went a little stiff at that proclamation. 

“Don’t you agree?” she said. “Merle himself said he couldn’t believe someone as weak as me lasted this long.”

“Ya ain’t weak, girl,” Daryl hissed, instinctively pulling her a little closer to him. “Ya just…gentle. It’s not a bad thing. How can you know stuff ya ain’t never been taught?” 

She smiled, “Well, teach me, then.” 

He looked a little lost at that, which surprised her. In her experience, men were generally chomping at the bit to teach her things, to teach women in general things. She always figured it made them feel macho, more in control, more intelligent or something. Guess Daryl isn’t much for mansplaining, she thought amusedly. 

He watched her smile at him, and he shook his head to the side a little. “I…wouldn’t even know how.”

“Well, how did you learn?” she asked. “Someone had to teach you, right? So, just show me like they showed you?” 

His face darkened a little. “Hell, no, girl,” he said. “That’s the point…if I learned you the way I was learned…” 

His voice trailed off and he shook his head. 

“I came up hard,” he said finally. “I learned hard. And it made me hard. Don’t want that happen to you. Like it happened to me. Don’t want to see what’s good and sweet and soft in you get taken away by this world, by the things you gotta do to survive in this world.” 

She just watched him, her head titled up at him as she rested her chin on her knee. 

“Daryl,” she said, watching his blue eyes flash worriedly across her face. “The fact that you’re even saying that…even thinking about that, just proves that you’re not hard at all. In fact, I think all you went through, it just made you even kinder and more tender, if that’s possible.” 

He made a wry face at that. “Ain’t no one on this earth would call me kind or tender, girl.” 

“Then ain’t no one on this earth really know you,” she said, mimicking his drawl and earning herself a tiny, affectionate pinch on her side. 

He sighed and closed his eyes for a second. 

“You gotta stop protecting me all the time and start letting me learn how to protect myself,” she said softly, scratching his back a little. 

“A’right,” he said, his voice muffled as he nuzzled into her neck. “I’ll try.” 

She smiled happily out into the woods. 

“Better get goin’ then,” he said. “First lesson: How to skin one of those squirrels I caught while you was sleepin’.”

Sara’s mouth dropped open as she followed his gaze to the side of the patio. There, in the corner, were the carefully piled bodies of three small squirrels. 

“Ugh!” she shrieked in disgust, leaping off the porch. “Why didn’t you tell me those things were just sitting there? Ugh!” 

He grinned wickedly at her. “Girl, you ain’t gonna be an easy student, I can see that already. Now git your ass back over here or you’re gonna have to stay after class.” 

“The hell I am!” she said, stomping her foot childishly in the fallen leaves. “I said I wanted to learn how to survive! Not how to make…’skin’ a squirrel.” 

She shuddered in horror as she said the word ‘skin,’ but he just stood up and motioned to the pile again. 

“Daryl!” 

He looked at her amusedly, reaching down to grab on of the squirrels by its tail and hold it out to her. 

“DARYL!” 

She backed up further now, shaking her head violently and making tiny disgusted noises. 

Finally, he relented, dropping the squirrel back on the patio and laughing long and deep. 

“Fuck, girl, just teasin,” he said, wiping a few tears from his eyes. “Go put your fuckin’ shoes and let’s get ready to go.” 

“UGH! Not funny, Daryl!” she said, angrily glaring at him. “I really thought…UGH!” 

“Girl, I done seen you eat squirrel stew before, so why the hell you actin’ so skittish?” he said, opening the front door and chuckling to himself still. 

“That was different!” she complained, flouncing past him and sitting down on the bed. “I was pretending it was chicken!” 

“You must be real good at pretending then,” he said, “I even seen you go for seconds.” 

“Yeah, I’m real good at pretending,” she said, “You should see the things I pretend in my head when we’re fucking.” 

He snickered at that and threw a pillow at her head, which she ducked easily.

“It’s true!” she teased. “I close my eyes and all I see is like Idris Elba.” 

“You pretending I’m a woman?” he asked in confusion. 

She burst out laughing. “Idris Elba is a MAN, Daryl.” 

Daryl rolled his eyes and gave her the finger, but then he suddenly stopped in the middle of packing up their stuff and turned to her with a hurt look on his face. “Wait, like an actor? Like someone you knew?” 

“No, no!” she said quickly, finishing her laces and going over to wrap him in a bear hug, her cheek against his chest. “I mean, yeah he was an actor…but, no, I never knew him. I’m just teasing, Daryl. You know that, right?” 

“Shit, girl, I know,” he said, rubbing her back, “There ain’t nothing pretend about what we do in bed together, ain’t gotta tell me that.” 

She smiled. 

“Fuck, if you were that good at pretending, you would at least have an Oscar or some shit.” 

Her mouth dropped and she gasped in mock offense. 

“How do you know I don’t? Thought you don’t know anything about Hollywood,” she said, pulling back to look at his face suspiciously. 

He looked a little guilty. 

“You read those magazines about me, didn’t you? The ones Merle brought back from the store that time?” 

“What can I say?” he shrugged. “I’m a bad man, baby.”

She burst out laughing. “You’re such a dork. Why didn’t you tell me that? That’s so annoying!” 

“Why?” he asked, pulling her back into his arms and roughly kissing her on the lips. 

She let herself get distracted by him for a second, and then pulled back. “Because! Now you know like…everything about me, and I still barely know anything about you.” 

He smiled at that and shrugged. “You do good on your lessons today, I’ll tell you anything you want to know tonight.” 

“Really? Anything?” she asked excitedly. 

“Yeah…within reason,” he said. “I ain’t gonna tell you about my first wet dreams or nothing.” 

“You don’t have to,” she said loftily. “Merle already did.”

Daryl’s jaw dropped a little. 

“Yeah, he said you were 12,” she said sighing airily, as if she was discussing the weather. “He said you had a thing for that girl from 'Dukes of Hazard.' Said you masturbated so much that summer he couldn’t find a clean sock to save his life—

She was going to continue, but he already had her half-lifted in the air, tickling her as he tossed her down onto the bed. 

“I mean it, I mean it,” she said, choking and gasping on her laughter. “He said you would be in the bathroom so long that he—

She would have kept talking but he stopped tickling and instead started nibbling on her neck, licking and sucking on the soft, sensitive skin there while he held her wrists above her head and rocked his hips against her core. 

“Well, that’s just cheating,” she said. 

“Shh,” he said, one his hands snaking down to start fumbling around the waistbamd of her leggings. 

“Daryl,” she said. “We’re supposed to be going.” 

“I can be done in one minute.” 

She cracked up at that and swatted his shoulder. “Such a ladykiller.” 

Groaning, he rolled off her and grabbed at his cock unhappily. 

“Fine,” he said. “But next time you bring up Daisy Duke you better be prepared for the consequences.” 

She stood up and laughed, shaking her head. 

A noise outside the cabin suddenly made them both go still, the silliness in the room disappearing like a popped bubble. Not saying a word, Daryl grabbed his bow and strode to the front door, opening it cautiously and then stepping out and closing it behind it. 

Sara held her breath. 

“Just one of ‘em,” he called out, and then she heard the sound of a bolt going through the juicy, rotten flesh of a corpse. 

Daryl walked back in the cabin, wiping the bloody bolt on his thigh. “C’mon,” he said. “Best go now.” 

She nodded and put on her backpack. It was time to learn.


End file.
